The first step to avoid the risks of overheating is to stay hydrated, as does this pedestrian in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo: Tony Juliano via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

By Joseph A. Davis

It’s going to be a hot one. Hot enough to kill anyone who doesn’t have shelter or knowledge of how to stay safe. 

That means it’s an ideal time for environmental journalists to remind their audiences about the dangers of extreme heat.

It matters because everyone deserves to live — even homeless people, those who have to work outside or those who can’t afford air conditioning. And because the heat this summer could indeed kill.

TipSheet learned recently that this summer will see the start of an unusually hot El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO for short) event. It’s being called a “super” El Niño, with language like “hottest ever.” 

All that will come on top of global warming, which is real and getting worse almost every year. This is not a summer to press your luck. Or perhaps to live in Phoenix.

In the old days, people used to go to air-conditioned movie theaters or bed down on “sleeping porches.” It’s hotter now.

To survive, your audience needs to know the basics about how heat kills. 

The first step is dehydration. You lose water and salt (electrolytes) by sweating, and if you don’t drink water, you get dehydrated. 

Next comes “heat exhaustion.” Body temperature may reach 104 F. You experience heavy sweating, cold/clammy skin, dizziness, faintness, muscle cramps, headache and nausea. (Get cool and hydrate!) 

The last, often fatal stage is “heat stroke.” Temp over 104 F. You experience confusion, altered mental state, slurred speech or hot/dry skin. Call 911.

Certain people are more vulnerable to heat illness: Older people, especially those who live alone and can’t afford air conditioning. Those who work outdoors, such as farmworkers, roofers, construction workers, road crews, mail carriers, foundry workers and roustabouts. Infants. People with kidney disease. Homeless people who live on the street. Infants. People with heart problems.

• Find out who keeps vital statistics in your area (usually a health department). Ask them how many died from the heat. Then ask how they know. Death certificates don’t always list heat as a cause. Do they see more heart attacks and strokes during high heat? Try to get stats for “excess deaths” during high heat.
• What are the homeless shelters doing during high heat events in your area? Do they reach out to homeless people? Shelter them? Support them in other ways?
• Does your community offer “cooling centers?” Go there and talk to people about why they have to be there.
• Talk to workers at farms, construction sites, road crews and the like. Get permission from bosses. Be tactful and respectful of workers. Bring a case of cold bottled water.
• Try to talk to staff at your local emergency rooms. Don’t get in the way. Maybe during off-hours. Or talk to administrators. What are their numbers of heat-related visits? Compare with normal.

• National Weather Service: Your local forecast is important and is usually broadcast. It issues warnings for high heat. Find a directory of local offices here. 
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: This is still the main federal public health agency. It recognizes excess heat as a major public health threat and offers good advice.
• Federal Emergency Management Agency: FEMA runs the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, which carries many kinds of public warnings via many channels (including your cellphone).
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration: OSHA was about to issue a workplace rule on extreme heat under former President Biden, but no longer. But it has advice for workers and employers, and reminds us that hot indoor workplaces can also harm us.
• American Public Health Association: Run by public health professionals, this group networks state and local health departments. It elevates the issue of extreme heat.

[Editor’s note: Stay tuned in June for an upcoming SEJournal Issue Backgrounder looking more closely into the El Niño phenomenon. Meanwhile, for more on extreme heat, see a recent Reporter’s Toolbox on government data portals, a Feature on covering its health impacts, #SEJ2025 Live coverage on four things to know about extreme heat and TipSheets on how heat affects recreation, what makes communities more survivable, heat as a local story, urban heat islands and heat-induced grid failures. Plus, check out Toolboxes on the HeatRisk data site and on other resources for tying temperature shifts to climate change, finding record temps and tracking data on heat deaths. Also see a Backgrounder on extreme heat and human health, a Feature on reporting on workers in a warming world and an EJ InSight on photographing heat waves. For more on climate change generally, be sure to visit our Climate Change Resource Guide and its collection of resources on human health, as well as our special “Covering Your Climate” reports on the South and the Pacific Northwest. And keep track of the latest extreme heat-related headlines via EJToday.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 11, No. 21. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.