The Survival Guide › Extreme Heat
🌡Extreme Heat
Heat kills more people in an average American year than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods together, and it does it quietly.
What actually kills people. There is no wreckage and no footage, so heat waves do not look like disasters. The people who die are disproportionately old, alone, and indoors without air conditioning. Checking on someone is a more effective intervention than anything you can buy.
Before
- Find out now which neighbours live alone, and agree that you will knock during a heat wave.
- Know where the nearest cooling centre, library or air-conditioned shop is.
- Check that fans are not your only plan — above about 95°F a fan moves hot air over you and stops helping.
- Ask a pharmacist whether any of your medications affect how you handle heat. Several common ones do.
During
- Drink before you are thirsty. Thirst lags behind dehydration.
- Move activity to early morning. The heat index peaks hours after noon, not at it.
- Never leave a person or an animal in a parked car, in any weather that is even warm. The interior outruns the outside temperature quickly and does not stop.
- Wear light colours, loose weave, and a hat with a brim.
- Cool the person, not just the room: wet cloths, a cool bath, air moving over damp skin.
After
- Keep checking on people for a day or two afterwards. Heat illness can present late.
- Rehydrate slowly and steadily rather than all at once.
- Look at what failed — the fan that was not enough, the room that never cooled — before the next one.
The thing people get wrong
“Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are the same thing with different names.”
They are different emergencies. Heat exhaustion is heavy sweating, cool clammy skin, a weak fast pulse, dizziness and nausea — move them somewhere cool, loosen clothing, cool wet cloths, small sips of water. Heat stroke is a body temperature above 103°F, hot skin that may be dry, confusion, slurred speech, a strong rapid pulse. That is a medical emergency: call 911 immediately, cool them any way you can, and do not give fluids. The NWS is explicit that delay can be fatal.
On this site now: Today’s heat index for your location ›
The rest of the guide
Sources: National Weather Service, FEMA, CDC and CPSC. Informational only, and no substitute for what your local emergency services tell you on the day — when officials say go, go.