7 heat-related deaths have been reported in Philadelphia this month, 8 for the year
Across New Jersey, 29 heat deaths are “suspected.”
Philadelphia so far has confirmed seven heat-related deaths in the last week, bringing the seasonal total to eight, the city health department reported Tuesday.
And officials in the Garden State are investigating 29 “suspected” heat-related deaths, most of them in the central and northern parts of the state, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Health Department said..
Four deaths were reported on Monday, and three additional fatalities Tuesday, said James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, with an eighth earlier in the season.
No details were available about the victims, including their ages and when and where the deaths occurred.
The possible New Jersey heat-related deaths would have occurred during the record three-day hot spell that ended on July Fourth, the state said.
In Philadelphia, temperatures on those three days hit 101 degrees or higher, the first time that had happened in the period of record dating to 1873, the National Weather Service said.
It also was only the third time that they officially reached triple digits on three straight days.
In New Jersey, the suspected victims ranged in age from the mid-30s to the 80s, said health department spokesperson Dalya Ewais. She added, however, that death toll numbers “are still unconfirmed,” pending forensic examinations.
In the last decade Philadelphia has averaged but five deaths annually, a dramatic drop from the deadly summers of the 1990s.
In 1993, Philadelphia recorded 118 heat-related deaths — compared with 50 in the 10-year period that began in 2017. The eight reported so far are the most since the eight of 2022, according to health department records.
The shock of the 1993 death toll in Philly — which foreshadowed Chicago’s 1995 disaster, and Europe’s in 2003 — led to the creation of the city’s heat-response system, recalled David L. Cohen, who was chief of staff under former Mayor Ed Rendell.
Federal officials have lauded the program as a model for other cities. It includes setting up cooling centers, encouraging people to look in on neighbors, and having the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging set up a heat hotline.
A study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society in 2025 credited the program with saving 270 lives from 1995 through 1998.
If the forecast holds, the city can give the program a rest at least through the week. No highs of even 90 degrees are expected through Monday.
