As Extreme Heat Kills Hundreds, Oregon Steps Up Push To Protect People

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/ [login to see] /as-extreme-heat-kills-hundreds-oregon-steps-up-push-to-protect-people
Andrew Morton had seen the weather forecast and decided to get ahead of the heat by switching up his schedule.

Morton works for a beverage and snack company in Wilsonville, Ore., and started coming in for his warehouse shifts late last month at midnight instead of his usual 4 a.m.. But it didn't seem to help much once the fierce heat dome landed over the Northwest, sending temperatures well into the triple digits.

"It is so humid and oppressively hot out here," he said in a recording of himself walking into work on the first hot night, getting sodas, candy and other snacks ready for delivery to vending machine locations. It felt like he was working in a sauna.

"When I came in, I'm like 'Wow, it's still pretty warm, I'm going to have to treat it as if it's the middle of the afternoon on a warm summer day,'" he said.