Tips For Surviving A Heat Wave!

Slate is reporting on a potentially dangerous heatwave now sweeping the east coast of the United States. Now, my memory is fine, and I can tell you that a brutal heatwave in July is not exactly an “alert the media” moment for that area. I grew up there, and you could be sure of few real scorchers during June, July, and August every year. Temperatures over a hundred anyway. We were used to it. Maybe it's different now, because of all of that newfangled air-conditioning. Maybe people are spoiled. Anyway, Slate offered some advice about how to handle the heat. It was a good start.

The article advises sufferers to drink a lot of water, stay out of the sun, and stay in air-conditioning as much as possible. To that I would add that people should walk very, very slowly, remaining in the shade if at all possible. Also, don't be embarrassed to deploy an umbrella to create some shade where there is none. Get one of those reflecting umbrellas if you can find one. If you can't find the reflecting ones, start a business selling them. They're about to become popular items as the world nears its burning-point.

Most of these instructions will not affect the behavior of New Yorkers, of which I was one. Take, for example, the suggestion that people walk more slowly. New Yorkers will continue to average five miles-per-hour, as usual, up to the point of dropping in their tracks from the heat. They have places to go, and don't get in their way.

Drink a lot of water? It's not always possible to find a bathroom in New York, so that's a big maybe not. New Yorkers practice “tactical dehydration,” like fighter pilots on long missions, to avoid the need to urinate. Here's another tip that you can try though. Buy a bottle of cold water and pour half of it over your shoulders. If it's hot enough, your shirt will be dry again pretty soon, and then you can pour the other half over yourself.

Dehydration can be very dangerous. It leads to symptoms that mimic oxygen deprivation. Like hallucinations and dizziness. Safely navigating a day in New York is hard enough without picking your way through hallucinations.

Here's a helpful tip that the Peace Corps shares with its volunteers in tropical countries: if you don't have to urinate right this second, you ain't drinking enough water. They told us that we should be drinking water more or less constantly. If it's hot enough, you still won't have to worry about finding a bathroom. You'll sweat it out.

Good luck, everybody! Thanks to the climate change routine, summers will be hotter, winters will be colder, and storms during the entire year will be more severe. And, if that weren't exciting enough, soon we'll be hitting the dreaded “tipping point,” and no one knows what will happen then. To my New York friends, take heart! It could be worse! Instead of suffering in New York, you could be suffering in Philadelphia.