This permaculture blog site has info on cooling without electricity.
I was a bit surprised to read two or three weeks ago that over the past few decades, more Californians have died from excessive heat than all other natural calamities combined. California-specific events would includes events like earthquakes, flooding, mudslides and wildfires. It's a rather hidden problem since there's no standard way of determining or recording "heat" as a major cause of death so it is mostly overlooked in reports and statistics.
Excessive heat can affect a very big area and population, and factors that increase the risk of succumbing to heat, like old age or various health conditions, like heart disease, are very common, so when I think about it, I shouldn't be surprised that heat kills so many. Even with a functioning electrical grid, many older people or people on fixed incomes just don't have or don't use air conditioning, so over several days of heat, will eventually expire. If cheap, passive methods like the ones in this blog were more common, we'd probably save a good number of lives over the years.
Thanks for the link, Sue. Although I've seen these ideas before, it's always good to be reminded of them from time to time.