Scorching temperatures are making delivery a dangerous job — and it’s only getting worse

• Record temperatures across the country are increasing the physical strain of delivery work.
• Delivery workers outside the hottest US states aren’t used to working in dangerous temperatures.
• Several delivery driver deaths have triggered changes. Experts are still asking if they’re enough.

One hundred and twenty-four degrees in Portland, Oregon; 107 degrees in Yosemite National Park; 88 degrees in Vermont — in April. The climate crisis may be a creeping threat at a global level, but on the local level, it’s playing out in big jumps. 

And when it is uncomfortably, unseasonably, intolerably hot, those jumps inspire the thought: “Wouldn’t it be nice to skip the store and have that delivered?”