I think the evidence of incidents of old people dying when AC/heat fails is difficult to ignore, but to each their own. As I said, the threat is greatest to the

I think the evidence of incidents of old people dying when AC/heat fails is difficult to ignore, but to each their own. As I said, the threat is greatest to the very old and very young, simply because they are far more likely to be in the sorry position of being unable to do anything about the failure. In the case of Chicago, they largely were "frogs in a boiling pot". Heat is one of the largest causes of weather based fatalities in the US. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml Similarly, just google "AC failure Texas" - it's a very real problem in hot climates.