As a dyed-in-the-wool Boston Celtics fan, I often spend this time of year concerned about the Heat. But as temperatures rise heading into summer, local governments in North Carolina may face more serious heat-related incidents than a potentially embarrassing NBA playoff loss. According to data from the National Weather Service, heat has been by far the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States in recent decades. From 1995-2024, the country averaged over twice as many heat-related deaths as deaths from flooding, the second leading cause of weather-related fatalities. This post will analyze whether dangers from extreme heat could cause an “emergency” under North Carolina’s Emergency Management Act (EMA).
Dangers of Extreme Heat
To evaluate whether extreme heat might cause an emergency, it will be first helpful to review: (1) some potential effects of extreme heat and (2) how extreme heat may affect North Carolina in coming decades.
Beyond causing death and non-fatal health complications, like heat exhaustion, heat cramps, or heat strokes, extreme heat can have strange and potentially dangerous impacts on infrastructure, vehicles, and other items. It can buckle roadways and rail lines. It can cause glass to shatter. Coupled with dry conditions, it can increase the risk of drought and wildfires, threatening crops, homes, and lives. It can even pose an obstacle to airplane or helicopter flight. In New York last year, a swing bridge could not close back in place after overheating on a 95-degree day.
North Carolina communities appear poised to endure massive increases in these 95+ degree days over the coming decades. The North Carolina Resiliency Exchange has published best and worst-case projections of average maximum temperature rise in municipalities across North Carolina from 2045-2074. In each of the state’s ten largest municipalities by population (Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Cary, Wilmington, High Point, and Concord), the Resiliency Exchange projects that the average number of 95+ degree days per year will at least double—even under the best-case scenario—compared to averages from 1983-2014. For nine of these ten cities, the Resiliency Exchange projects that the average number will at least triple.
As an aside, the state is taking steps that may be of interest to local governments to help communities prepare for extreme heat events. Last year, the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) helped publish a Heat Action Plan Toolkit, available for download here, to assist local governments with preparing for health-related extreme heat challenges. NCORR and the State Climate Office also offer a Planning for Extreme Heat Cohort program, a five-month, free offering designed to help with applying the Heat Action Plan Toolkit. According to the ReBuildNC website, applications to participate in the Fall 2025 cohort are planned to open in June 2025.
Legal Responses to Extreme Heat in North Carolina
Beyond considering resources like these, local governments might have interest in declaring a legal “state of emergency” to address extreme heat events. Declaring a state of emergency gives local governments additional powers to address emergency situations. These powers include authority to impose emergency prohibitions or restrictions that the local government has authorized by ordinance (G.S. 166A-19.31).
But could extreme heat ever really be cause for declaring a state of emergency? Even with the abovementioned dangers of extreme heat in mind, considering an extreme heat event an “emergency” might not seem intuitive. Especially in an Eastern North Carolina summer, high temperatures are commonplace. People living through an extreme heat wave might not feel like they’re in an “emergency” situation in the same way as when enduring an earthquake, hurricane, blizzard, tornado, or another more singular, rarer extreme weather event. Each person also responds to heat differently; has different opinions on how much heat is tolerable; and might disagree with others on basic questions about high temperatures, like what counts as “warm” or “hot” or “extremely hot.” The North Carolina State Climate Office even categorizes the threshold temperatures for “extreme heat” differently in different areas of North Carolina. For all of these reasons, extreme heat may feel less objectively dangerous than other types of extreme weather. Extreme heat events may therefore never seem like “emergencies” in many people’s everyday sense of the term.
However, in certain circumstances, extreme heat might create a legal emergency under the EMA. Extreme heat might therefore also create a valid cause for declaring a local state of emergency.
Declaring and Terminating a Local State of Emergency
To understand why, let’s look at when the state or a local government can declare a state of emergency. This section will also go over the broader process for declaring and terminating a local state of emergency as an introduction or refresher on this process for readers.
Under the EMA, a “[s]tate of emergency” exists when the governing body of a municipality or county, the Governor, or the General Assembly finds and declares that an “emergency” exists (G.S. 166A-19.3(19)). A municipality or county can also delegate the authority for declaring a state of emergency by ordinance to, respectively, the mayor or the chair of the county board of commissioners (G.S. 166A-19.22(a)). An “emergency” under the EMA is:
An occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural or man‑made accidental, military, paramilitary, terrorism, weather‑related, public health, explosion‑related, riot‑related cause, or technological failure or accident, including, but not limited to, a cyber incident, an explosion, a transportation accident, a radiological accident, or a chemical or other hazardous material incident. An emergency may also be caused by a disruption in the supply chain that creates a significant threat to a local government’s ability to acquire products or services required to provide essential services such as electricity and water to the populace or required to restore such essential services in the event of widespread or severe damage to the local government system used to provide such essential services (G.S. 166A-19.3(6)).
Counties and municipalities can declare states of emergency independently of each other. They can also declare states of emergency even when neither the Governor nor General Assembly has done so.
The places in which a local state of emergency applies are called “emergency areas” (see G.S. 166A-19.3(7)). By default, the emergency area for a municipal state of emergency will be the entire area in which the municipality “has jurisdiction to enact general police-power ordinances” (G.S. 166A-19.22(b)(1)). By default, the emergency area for a county state of emergency will also extend over the entire area in which the county “has jurisdiction to enact general police-power ordinances,” except that it will not extend: (1) within municipal corporate limits or (2) to any areas of the county where the municipality has this general police-power ordinance-making jurisdiction (G.S. 166A-19.22(b)(1), (2)). However, local governments can explicitly limit emergency areas to a smaller part of their default emergency area.
Additionally, a municipality can agree to extend a county state of emergency into the municipality and vice versa, with some caveats. A municipality’s mayor or governing body can request or consent to having the county’s emergency area cover the municipality’s corporate limits and any parts of the county where the municipality has general police-power ordinance-making jurisdiction (G.S. 166A-19.22(b)(2)). And similarly, a county can, by declaration and at the request of a mayor, extend a municipal state of emergency into “any area within the county in which the board or chair determines it to be necessary to assist in the controlling of the emergency within the municipality,” subject to several limitations (G.S. 166A-19.22(b)(3)). The EMA does not require a municipality to declare its own state of emergency to have part of its area covered under a county state of emergency or vice versa.
By default, a state of emergency will last until “the official or governing body that declared it” terminates it. But a local government’s emergency ordinance may provide alternative guidance (G.S. 166A-19.22(c)).
For more details, Norma Houston published this older post on frequently asked questions about local state of emergency declarations. It could provide a starting point for deeper questions on declaring and terminating a state of emergency. Local government staff can also consider consulting with their local government’s attorney for questions on their specific state of emergency declarations and terminations.
Circumstances When Extreme Heat Might Create a Legal Emergency under the EMA
With this framework in mind, at least three major types of scenarios exist in which an extreme heat event might create a legal emergency under the EMA. These types of scenarios might therefore also create a valid reason to declare a local state of emergency:
The first involves actual or potential heat deaths or injuries. An emergency under the EMA includes “[a]n occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe… injury[] or loss of life… resulting from any natural… weather-related [or] public health… cause.” An extreme heat event would appear to be a “natural… weather-related” situation and could be a public health concern. As stated above, extreme heat has been the leading “weather-related… cause” of “loss of life” in recent years in the United States. Extreme heat could also lead to non-fatal injuries through a condition like heat stroke. An extreme heat wave within a local government unit might therefore qualify as an emergency when involving an “occurrence” or at least “imminent threat” of “widespread or severe… injury[] or loss of life.”
The second involves actual or potential heat-connected damage to infrastructure or property. An emergency under the EMA also includes “[a]n occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage… or loss of… property resulting from any natural… weather-related [or] public health… cause.” As noted above, extreme heat could directly damage roads, bridges, rail lines, and glass. Aircraft might also risk being damaged if they operate during extreme heat, and an aircraft crash caused by operating in extreme heat could lead to further damage or property loss. Further, extreme heat might indirectly cause damage or loss of property by helping to start or prolong drought conditions or a wildfire. An extreme heat event therefore probably also could cause an “occurrence” or “imminent threat” of “widespread or severe” damage or property loss and lead to an “emergency” in that sense.
The third, which may especially overlap with the second, involves extreme heat conditions that threaten access to certain goods or services. An emergency under the EMA can also result from:
a disruption in the supply chain that creates a significant threat to a local government’s ability to acquire products or services required to provide essential services… or required to restore such essential services in the event of widespread or severe damage to the local government system used to provide such essential services.
When extreme heat affects transportation infrastructure or aircraft, it might create this type of supply chain disruption, creating an emergency. Interestingly, the EMA does not specify whether this “disruption in the supply chain” must occur within the local government unit itself or whether it could occur in some other location, so long as the disruption still “creates a significant threat to a local government’s ability to provide essential services” or restore them after certain widespread or severe damage. Which reading is correct is not immediately clear. But if the latter is right, extreme heat in other parts of the state, country, or even world might create a valid justification for a locally declared state of emergency.
Conclusion and Further Considerations
Extreme heat may very well create an “emergency” under the EMA in a variety of circumstances. North Carolina local governments therefore may very well also have the authority to declare a state of emergency related to certain extreme heat events. But for a local government considering doing so, the analysis would not end there. Contemplating this type of state of emergency declaration provokes several follow-on questions, including: How much would courts defer to a local government’s conclusion that extreme heat created an “emergency” if challenged? What might be the advantages or drawbacks of trying to address extreme heat through a locally declared state of emergency? What types of emergency prohibitions or restrictions could a local government legally impose to address the challenges of extreme heat? Examining these types of questions will be important to deciding whether declaring an extreme heat state of emergency makes sense in a specific circumstance. To help respond to some of these questions, stay tuned for a follow-up post on major reasons why a local government might want to declare a state of emergency due to extreme heat.
