CNN – Buckled roads. Broken bridges. Delayed trains. Strained power grids that led to dangerous outages. Cases of heat illness and canceled sporting events.
These were just a few of the effects from this week’s oppressive heat wave, which brought the hottest day in over a decade on Tuesday.
As previous disasters have laid bare the United States’ vulnerabilities to other types of extreme weather, this week is revealing strains in the country’s infrastructure and highlighting the public health risks when faced with such record-breaking heat.
The heat wave comes as the odds of extreme heat events globally are growing steeply as the world warms, along with their severity and duration.
As global average temperatures increase, heat waves are the type of extreme weather event that scientists can most reliably tie to climate change caused by fossil fuel pollution.
And this week’s isn’t over yet: Nearly 100 daily temperature records are threatened on Wednesday and heat indices are likely to reach the triple-digits along large portions of the East Coast. About 125 million people are still under extreme heat warnings and advisories on Wednesday.
When this heat wave began to build over the weekend, roads buckled in South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa as the asphalt baked in the hot sun. On Monday, passengers had to be rescued from an Amtrak stuck in a Baltimore tunnel with no air conditioning.
Widespread speed restrictions were put in place along multiple Amtrak routes due to the tendency for the heat to warp rail tracks, along with the potential for electrical outages.
Numerous trains were canceled outright due to the weather. More roads cracked in the East Coast as the heat persisted, including interstates in New Jersey …
