PORTLAND — Relatives of some of the people killed by record-breaking heat in the Portland, Oregon, area three years ago gathered this weekend to plant trees in Multnomah County in honor of the 72 victims.
The event, coordinated by state and local officials and a nonprofit group, drew dozens of volunteers to a nature park in suburban Gresham, where a ceremonial hornbeam was planted. Family members placed paper hearts with the names of the people they lost in the ground with the hornbeam, one of 72 trees planted Saturday.
“I didn’t think many people cared anymore about what happened to people’s families during the heat wave,” LaRome Ollison, whose 68-year-old father, Jerome Ollison, died during the June 2021 heat wave, told The Oregonian. “Now I see that the province cares, and we appreciate that.”
Three consecutive days of extraordinary temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, which typically enjoys mild summers, have shattered records. Temperatures in Portland reached triple digits for three days, peaking at 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius), while records fell in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, Canada.
On the third day of that heat, Jerome Ollison’s daughter, NaCheryl, 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 beat the heat.
Oregon blamed 116 deaths statewide on the heat, Washington state reported at least 91 and officials in British Columbia said hundreds of “sudden and unexpected deaths” were likely due to rising temperatures.
More people died from heat in the Portland area in June than in the entire state in the past two decades, authorities said. Three of the victims honored with tree plantings died later that summer.
Scientists said the deadly heat would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change, which would add a few extra degrees to the record temperatures.
The deaths increased preparation for extreme conditions across the state in the years that followed.
Multnomah County Chairwoman Jessica Vega Pederson said Gresham and the Portland neighborhood in East Portland have the fewest trees in the county, 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 in similar events,” she said.
The Ollison family went to their father’s apartment building every 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 place.”