Page 2
April 3, 2024
Trees Planted to honor Heat Wave Victims
Paper Hearts
Marked with
the Names
of the People
that were
Lost During
2021 Killer
Heat Wave
(AP) — Family members of
some of the people killed by re-
cord-breaking heat in the Port-
land, Oregon, area three years
ago gathered over the weekend
to plant trees across Multnomah
County in honor of its 72 victims.
The event, coordinated by county
and local officials and a nonprof-
it group, drew scores of volun-
teers to a nature park in suburban
Gresham where a ceremonial
hornbeam tree was planted. Fam-
ily members placed paper hearts
marked with the names of the peo-
ple they lost into the ground with
the hornbeam, which was among
72 trees planted Saturday.
Dozens gathered at Nadaka Nature park in Gresham Oregon to hold a tree planting event in memory
of those who died during the heatwave of 2021. (Mark Graves/The Oregonian via AP)
“I didn’t think a lot of people
still cared about what happened
to people’s families in the heat-
wave,” LaRome Ollison, whose
68-year-old father, Jerome Olli-
son, died during the June 2021
heat wave, told The Oregonian.
“Now I see that the county cares,
and we appreciate it.”
Three consecutive days of ex-
traordinary temperatures in the
Pacific Northwest, which usu-
ally experiences mild summers,
shattered all-time records. Tem-
peratures in Portland reached tri-
ple digits for three days, peaking
at 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47
Celsius) as records fell across
Oregon, Washington and Brit-
ish Columbia, Canada. On the
third day of that heat, Jerome
Ollison’s daughter, NaCheryl,
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said she knew something was
wrong when her father didn’t
answer his phone. She said she
went to his apartment building
in southeast Portland and found
him dead on a couch, with only
a small desk fan to contend with
the heat.
Oregon blamed 116 deaths
statewide on the heat, Washing-
ton state reported at least 91 and
officials in British Columbia
said hundreds of “sudden and
unexpected deaths” were likely
due to the soaring temperatures.
More people died from the heat
in the greater Portland area that
June than in the entire state over
the past 20 years, authorities
said. Three of the victims hon-
ored with tree plantings died
later that summer.
Scientists said the deadly heat
would have been virtually impos-
sible without human-caused cli-
mate change that added a few ex-
tra degrees to the record-smashing
temperatures.The deaths prompt-
ed better preparation for extreme
conditions across the state in the
years that followed.Multnomah
County Chair Jessica Vega Peder-
son said Gresham and the Portland
neighborhood of East Portland
have the fewest trees in the coun-
ty, but more are being planted.
“They will cool us down when
the summer is hot, and they will
help us save future lives that
might otherwise be taken from us
in similar events,” she said.
The Ollison family used to go
to their father’s apartment build-
ing each year to release balloons
in Jerome’s honor. Now they have
a new place to pay their respects.
“This is more personal,” LaRome
Ollison said of the nature park.
“It’s a beautiful spot.”