(WIB) – It wasn’t too-too hot quite yet when Shaua Thomas’ electricity was shut off in early June after she fell behind on her bills. In St. Ann, Missouri, the small city just north of Saint Louis, where Thomas lived, it was 88 degrees that day, June 11. But in the weeks that followed, the temperature skyrocketed as a heat dome weather system settled over a large swath of the eastern half of the country, including Missouri.

On June 23, the day Thomas, who was 55, was found dead in her sweltering apartment, the temperature hit 96 degrees, and the heat index was well over 100.

The temperature was similarly high — in the 90s — in Dallas over the weekend just prior to Thomas’s death. Jacob Taylor, a 28-year veteran letter carrier, was covering a shift that Saturday, and was driving one of th

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