The 2003 Heat Wave

 This event....lasting roughly five weeks (mid-July to mid-August) was probably one of the roughest periods I'd ever seen in Germany, or for that matter in the US.

There's not a single day in that period where the daytime temperature went below 34C (94 F).  On some days, it easily hit 38C (100 F).  

You have to remember in that era....out of a thousand German homes/residents....probably fewer than 1-percent had a AC unit of some type.  In a lot of stores at the time....probably fewer than 10-percent had AC.  Trains in that era had just begun to put AC units into the newer models.   

Wind?  Non-existent.

Asphalt pavements?  Buckled up, and triggered all kinds of autobahn accidents.

In France?  14,000-plus people died.  A lot of these were elderly folks who simply didn't stay hydrated to the degree required.  

In Germany?  The death number (with secondary issues figured in) went up around 7,000. 

The AC unit in the Air Force office?  Non-effective.  The best you could hope for was around 32 C (90 F).  I'd drive home, go up to the second floor of the building, and with the windows open and fans running....it'd easily be 38 C (100 F) by 6 PM within the structure.  You'd sit there in your underwear, with a water sprayer dosing your face and having a fan five feet away.

Around the second week of the wave....even if you had 500 to 800 Euro in your pocket to buy a small AC unit for the house....they were all completely sold out.  I worked with one American gal who'd found some source in K-Town who had two units left, which they wanted absolute full-pricing (they were probably 150 Euro each over their normal pricing), and she readily paid for them with no questions asked.

The dehydration problem?  A lot of people were unfamiliar with this type of heat, and they often went to wine or beer as a hydration beverage (big mistake). The French media tried desperately to alert older folks to drinking plain water.  

Road crews?  You'd go down the autobahn and see guys wearing the briefest shorts possible, no shirt, and usually shutting down the operation by 1 PM in the afternoon.  

As for the end?  Toward the third week of August....there was a new front to go through central Europe and in a matter of just hours....the temperature dropped down to the high 20s (C), and you felt like a huge burden had been lifted.

The thing that amazed me over the next twelve months....when you analyzed the death count throughout all of Europe....it was easily up in the 70,000 range.  Heat exhaustion, dehydration, heat stroke, etc.  

Then quietly...within ten years, the whole event was forgotten.  You can bring it up today, and only the Germans who are over thirty-five remember that summer.