Extreme heat in California killed an estimated 460 people and cost the state a whopping $7.7 billion over the last decade, according to a new report.
The report was commissioned by California’s Department of Insurance following a 2022 law that mandated the study of extreme heat and was published at the end of June. It analyzed seven major extreme heat events between 2013 and 2022, finding that extreme heat in those ten years has killed far more people than all the state’s wildfires dating back to the 1930s.
The report also found that soaring temperatures resulted in $7.7 billion of economic loss thanks to lost productivity, associated healthcare costs, agricultural disruptions, infrastructure issues, and other disruptions.
The report comes as California is seeing record temperatures, with the state’s Death Valley reaching 128 degrees this week. Parts of Northern California saw temperatures above 110 degrees over the holiday weekend, with temperatures in Redding reaching 119.
The Department of Insurance also found that extreme heat in California disproportionately affected people of color and low-income people.
“We are just scraping the surface in understanding the disproportionate impacts of heat on marginalized and low-income communities,” Kathy Baughman McLeod, a member of the CA Climate Insurance Working Group, wrote in the report’s forward.
California’s Insurance Commissioner Richardo Lara wrote that the report’s findings “underscore the urgency of developing targeted interventions and policies that mitigate the immediate effects of extreme heat and build long-term resilience.”
Lara said California must do more to invest in heat resilience to protect its community and economy. “By investing in adaptive infrastructure, such as urban tree planting to reduce the ‘heat island’ effect, and implementing comprehensive heat action plans, we can significantly mitigate the impacts on our communities,” he wrote.
Michael Mendez, an assistant professor of environmental planning and policy at UC Irvine, said the death tolls from heat in the past decade are likely much higher than the report’s estimated 460.
“It’s really important to understand that heat is a silent killer,” Mendez told the Associated Press. Excessive heat “requires the same amount of speed in action that large disasters get.”