Earlier this month, I stayed in a cabin along the ridge of Frazier Hollow, an hour east of Nashville, Tennessee, and two hours from where I grew up. Although shaded by tall woods, the 10-foot walk between the cedar frame and the fire ring was enough: Sweat poured down my face. The high was 94, four degrees above the historic average, and the air was muggy. I was lulled into thinking it was a typical Southern summer. A tick crawled up my arm, kudzu swamped the power lines in town, a dead armadillo drew flies along a rural road, and black-eyed Susans exploded beside a creek bed. The next day, when I weaved in and out of the honky-tonks on Nashville’s Music Row, heat rippled up from the sidewalk and my clothes soaked with sweat. The heat index—the combination of heat and humidity, or what the temperature feels like—was 101 degrees and climbing. By Tuesday, it topped out at 109 and a heat advisory covered much of middle Tennessee. Temperatures at that height can cause sunstroke, heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and possible heatstroke. According to NOAA data analyzed by the Alabama Political Reporter, in the United States alone, extreme heat causes more deaths than hurricanes and floods combined, twice as many as tornadoes, and four times as many as extreme cold. |