What I don't understand is that they were warned well ahead of time about this, but Europeans refuse to buy air conditioners seemingly because, "it will never get used" because it generally doesn't get hot over there.

A window unit costs about 200 Euros. They are available everywhere. Call me a wuss, but if I was warned that it would be that hot, I would get one and use it for those couple of days, then just store it in a closet until it is needed again.

If it will be -5 degrees in my house for 3 days next month guess what? I'm going to buy a space heater for those days and store it in my closet for the remaining 362 days that I don't need it.

I really don't understand the mentality here. I hope I don't sound privileged here, but I really don't think it's that expensive or difficult to store to not be 105F heat all day and night. I mean how much are they spending on popsicles/ice/water/fans?

Just buy a goddamn AC for fucks sake.