Headlines  reflect how widespread  the heat wave is. It has been tormenting us for weeks now, and it's not just North America: It's hot all over .

This kind of heat pushes several attending dangers. Most obvious is the threat of heat illnesses to people . Make sure you have fluids—it's really the bottom line for heat preparedness. The heat prompts people to kick up the air conditioners and fans, and refrigerators are making ice cubes like crazy. The tax on power providers  makes the grid really nervous ; they have 3 stages of alerts before they cut the power. When the power goes out, by choice or by overload, it's hard on everyone .

Then there's St. Louis. Those folks have suffered all these dangers the past couple of weeks—and when they finally get some cooling relief from rain, it's a huge storm that wipes out the power .

Then you have the fire danger. Fire is the chief reason why you use flashlights with batteries in power outages, NOT candles! The fire in San Diego County  is being driven by triple-digit temperatures and is causing anxiety in the community.