It wasn’t too hot in early June last year when Shauna Thomas’ electricity was cut off because she was behind on her bills. In St. Ann, Missouri, a small city just north of St. Louis where Thomas lived, the temperature that day was 88 degrees.
But in the weeks that followed, temperatures soared as a heat dome weather system took hold over a large swath of the eastern half of the country, including Missouri.
On the day Thomas, 55, was found dead in his sweltering apartment, the temperature reached 96 degrees and the heat index was well above 100.
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A week earlier in Dallas, temperatures were in the 90s as veteran letter carrier Jacob Taylor, 28, delivered mail in one of the U.S. Postal Service’s old mail trucks without air conditioning. He never returned home from his shift.
“I heard that a customer saw him suddenly collapsing as he was inputting mail to be delivered,” said Kimetra Lewis of the Dallas Postal Carriers Union. Taylor died later that day. He was only 55 years old.
Heat is a killer – and the victims are often black
Extreme heat can be deadly, but it’s not always easy to recognize it as such. High temperatures are the deadliest of extreme weather events, but deaths caused by extreme heat are difficult to identify and are often mistakenly attributed to other causes.
However, as temperatures rise due to climate change, an increase in heat-related deaths has attracted the attention of researchers and the media. And, like Thomas and Taylor, the victims are often black.
In 2024, inmate Adrian Boulware died at the Central California Women’s Facility when temperatures reached 110 degrees in Chowchilla. In 2023, another Dallas letter carrier, Eugene Gates, died while delivering letters in Dallas during a heat wave.
A 2025 Center for American Progress report states unequivocally that “those most vulnerable to the health effects of heat include working-class, low-income people, and majority Black or Latino communities, as well as people with disabilities or chronic conditions, people who are pregnant, people who work or exercise outdoors, older adults, and young children.”
According to CAP, more than 21,000 people died from heatstroke in the United States from 1999 to 2023, and the annual number of deaths has steadily increased since 2016.
Thomas, a resident whose electricity was cut off, and Taylor, a letter carrier, were victims of widespread problems that turn dangerous heat into deadly heat: rapid climate warming that causes extreme weather, lack of air conditioning, and working outdoors.
changes in law
Thomas was reported to have had health problems before the heatwave, but authorities concluded that high temperatures and lack of air conditioning were contributing factors, if not the entire cause, to her death. If the heat had hit a few days earlier, or if state laws had been a little different, she might have had air conditioning when she needed it most.
There is no ability to cycle power if it becomes dangerously hot.
Missouri has a so-called high temperature law that prohibits utility companies from shutting off electricity or natural gas when temperatures are predicted to reach at least 95 degrees or when the heat index reaches 105 degrees or higher. This law will come into force from June 1st to September 30th of each year.
Thomas’ electricity was shut off after that year’s heat law went into effect, but temperatures remained below the 95-degree mark. There is no ability to cycle power if it becomes dangerously hot.
“We are saddened to learn that one of our customers has passed away,” a spokesperson for St. Ann’s electric company Ameren Missouri said in a statement. “Due to privacy concerns, we are unable to share specific customer account details, but our thoughts are with the individual’s family and friends.”
incompatible with the climate crisis
For delivery drivers, the problem with extreme heat is two-fold. In addition to working outdoors, they often drive for hours on end in vehicles without air conditioning.
The USPS’ classic mail trucks are officially called “Grumman Long Life Vehicles,” and the Postal Service built a fleet of these utility trucks over a 10-year period starting in 1987. Many of them have exceeded their expected 25-year useful lives, but in many ways they are out of step with the times of the climate crisis.
“The only way to cool the USPS’ old Grumman LLV mail trucks was to drive them as fast as possible with a hilariously small fan or side door open,” Car and Driver reported.
Without air conditioning, the temperature inside a mail truck can exceed the temperature outside on a hot, sunny day and can quickly become dangerous. The Postal Service is updating its fleet and replacing LLVs with next-generation, air-conditioned delivery vehicles. The majority of the trucks will also be fully electric.
But this process takes time, and summers are only getting hotter.
