The worst is yet to come as punishing weather continues to strike U.S.

By Charlene Muhammad -National Correspondent- | Last updated: Jul 28, 2011 - 3:23:47 AM

Mary Ware sits still on her bed next to the fan while waiting for a ride for dialysis July 21, in Chicago. Ware, 62, who suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes and requires dialysis three times a week, lives in a basement Chicago apartment with her son and daughter. She receives disability income but can’t afford air-conditioning. Thousands of low-income people across the nation are having trouble paying their electric bills during this sweltering summer because the assistance normally available isn’t there after Congress cut millions of dollars used for the program. Photo: AP Wide World Photos/Kiichiro Sato

“So each one We punished for his sin. Of them was he on whom We sent a violent storm, and of them was he whom the rumbling overtook, and of them was he whom We caused the earth to swallow, and of them was he whom We drowned. And it was not Allah, Who wronged them, but they wronged themselves.”
Holy Quran, Surah 29:40, “The Spider”

(FinalCall.com) - A deadly heat wave that started in the Central Region expanded to the East Coast of America, causing dozens of deaths and increasing heat-related emergency room visits, by at least 20 percent in one city.

According to a spokesperson at the National Weather Service, unconfirmed reports it received were that 31 people across 10 states had died due to heat-related illnesses. In addition, the smothering weather has rendered more than 140 million people under excessive heat watches, warnings and advisories.

In the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic regions, temperatures were in the triple digits above 105 degrees, and Iowa, Indiana and Illinois climbed to heat indexes of 123, 120 and 115 degrees, respectively.

Divine chastisement

A runner succumbs to heat stroke. Photo: MGNOnline/ Courtesy of Jerry Armstrong

The heat wave, like other recent disasters, has left many across the U.S. wondering, even begging the question, when or why won't it stop?

Scientists say that's a very good question—one they have even asked themselves, but cannot really answer because it's very hard to explain in the bigger picture why the individual weather events occur.

While the recent string of disasters have been exceptional, research can show that weather varies and answers can be gathered over long periods of time but it's hard to give any explanation about all these extremes in any given year, explained Eli Jacks, a Meteorologist with the National Weather Service Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

“I can't give you any one underlying answer. We know that it's occurring. We can see why it's occurring, and we can see what the weather patterns causing it are but we're not able to look at this year's extreme weather and say that, ‘all of that happened because of this.' We're not able to do that,” he told The Final Call.

But the cause and solutions to the weather crisis in America have and continue to be clearly outlined in the divine prophecies of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Farrakhan.

“The reason that His (God's) anger is kindled against America and (that there is) His threat to destroy America... is because of what America has done, is doing and plans to do against the Black man and woman of America whom I have declared to the world of religion ... that we are the Children of Israel and we are the fulfillment of God's prophecy and promise,” Min. Farrakhan stated during his March 31, 2011 press conference on the U.S.-sponsored, NATO-led bombing on Libya.

Amazingly, said NOI Student Minister and Attorney Ava Muhammad, people—Black and White, Christians, Muslims, and Jews—refuse to see the connection between the weather patterns and the policies of the U.S. government.

“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, of course, in ‘Fall of America,' almost a half century ago, warned America that this day would come, when she would be held accountable for her evil against the people of God, the Black man and woman, and spreading that evil around the world,” Dr. Muhammad said.

She explained people are blessed to have a man with the courage of Min. Farrakhan in their midst and that he alone has been willing to stand up and warn America one final time to cease and desist her wickedness. That includes her blatant assassination and assassination attempts on heads of states and the invasion of other nations for their natural resources, she said.

Evidence of Min. Farrakhan's persistent warnings and some of the worst fates suffered across America under natural disasters have been documented by the Nation of Islam Historical Research Department.

For example, in May, Joplin, Missouri experienced the deadliest tornado to hit America since 1947. With 200 miles per hour winds, it killed 125 people, injured at least 900, and displaced 232.

Massive dust storm in Phoenix, AZ July 6. Photo: MGNOnline

The Historical Research Department's studies uncovered a little known Black Massacre which took place in April 1903 as a possible contributing factor.

In a short article in the local newspaper titled “Joplin's Race Riot”, it was shown that on April 15, 1903, because a racist mob believed that a negro killed a police officer who attempted to arrest other negroes for working at railroad yards, it dragged the Black male out of jail and lynched him.

Unsatisfied, however, hundreds of them gathered that night and rioted through the negro district. The mob burned their homes, stoned them, and drove them out of town.

“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught that every act of nature is the result of the active will of Allah, meaning that nothing just occurs. There are no coincidences; that these weather patterns are His specific means of leveling punishment and we have yet to calculate the damage from the weather,” Dr. Ava Muhammad said.

She added, “Now we are in a severe heat dome. There is a dome of heat sitting over most of the United States right now and we have yet to be able to understand the effects of this on crops and ultimately the famine that is not only possible but probable as a result of these weather patterns.”

But the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's words have never rung more true than they do today and the solution that he gave remains the best and only solution, for the Black man and woman to go and do for self and set up an area that is for us exclusively in a territory here in the Continental U.S. or elsewhere, Dr. Muhammad added.

Health implications and climate change

“Heat is the number one killer of all natural disasters ... the implications of the current heat wave have been mostly from a human health standpoint,” said Mr. Jacks.

The combination of extreme heat and unusually high levels of humidity create dangerous conditions for the human body. Heat strokes and other heat-related illnesses can develop when the body heats too quickly to cool itself safely, or from losing too much fluid or salt through hydration or sweating.

According to experts at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the extreme weather America experienced in 2011 alone warrants a study of the risks posed by climate change and a study of possible protections as the events grow more severe and more common.

Torrential rains and heavy winds downed trees and cut power to over 600,000 people in Chicago. Photo: Timothy 6X.

Ecologists, who study the relationship between changes in the environment and actions that affect it, refer to climate change as seasonal changes over a long period of time. Climate change affects more than just a change in weather, they say.

Dr. Ridgley Muhammad, an agriculturalist and manager of Muhammad Farms, attributes the severe weather patterns to theology, not science. “Climate change won't impact one county or area. It's more widespread,” he said.

More specifically, he noted, the heat wave has exacerbated an already brutal drought that, according to reports, has crippled rural municipal water districts.

The climate change is a stress multiplier for many existing public health problems that are impacting already burdened and vulnerable populations, such as people living in poverty, people without air conditioning, outdoor workers, infants and children, elderly, pregnant women, people with chronic illness, people with acute illness, and people who are disabled, among others, Gina Wood, director of policy and planning for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said.

“The resources and infrastructure needed to adapt to the heat wave and other climate-related incidents exist and need to be expanded, however, a concerted effort must be made to identify those most at risk to be successful. Those at greatest risk are often least prepared,” Ms. Wood told The Final Call an in email.

According to Ms. Wood, death and injuries from excessive heat tend to occur more severely in urban areas from the “urban heat island effect.”

She said this is caused by the warming effect of densely populated and built-up cities.

“A couple of things that could be done are for families and friends to check on their loved ones/neighbors to make sure they are weathering the heat,” she said.

Brian Bob, an advocate for homeless youth in Manhattan, New York, has been keeping cool by drinking plenty of water and indulging in frozen fruit snacks. He's been contemplating buying an air conditioning unit but until then, he said, he has surrounded himself with four fans.

“Friends of mine have a huge house, but it doesn't have AC. At night, the whole family sleeps in the master bedroom, which has a window air conditioner. At work, we've been advising young people to drink a lot of water and stay in the building more often throughout the day, particularly the young mothers and babies,” he told The Final Call.

(Deen Muhammad contributed to this report.)

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