Mandy Messinger's early memories of her father, Craig, are of the smell of his tobacco pipe and how he taught her to throw a baseball. Craig Messinger, was killed in a flash flood near Philadelphia in 2021. She is still processing his death. Mandy Messinger hide caption
A truck sits in still water after Hurricane Laura swept through Cameron Parish, La., in 2020. The storm killed dozens of people in the U.S. hide caption
Wilmer Vasquez was a gregarious extrovert. "He was very outgoing person," remembers his ex-girlfriend Rose Carvajal. He died in 2023 at just 29 years old after working outside as a roofer in record-breaking August heat in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Rose Carvajal hide caption
Pima County Medical Examiner Greg Hess at his office in Tucson, Ariz. Hess and another Arizona-based medical examiner are rethinking how to catalog and count heat-related deaths, a major step toward understanding the growing impacts of heat. Cassidy Araiza for NPR hide caption
Catastrophic flash floods killed dozens of people in eastern Kentucky in July 2022. Here, homes in Jackson, Ky., are flooded with water. Arden S. Barnes/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption
Wildfire smoke covered huge swaths of the U.S. in 2023, including places like New York City, where it has historically been uncommon. New research shows the health costs of breathing in wildfire smoke can be high. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hide caption