Texas health authorities warned people to stay indoors and avoid heavy exertion while the smog-like haze lingered. The greatest concern for human health was the inhalation of tiny particles, many of them cancer-causing. Haze from the fires was reported as far away as Denver and Chicago. Last year in Brazil, the Amazon basin's treasure trove of biodiversity was singed when an area the size of Great Britain went up in flames. Members of a Stone Age tribe, the Yanamamo, lost their homes to the raging inferno.
Some places also receive more water, with devastating floods and ferocious storms.
In the United States, there are pretty good measurements of rainfall going back to 1910. That is what you'd expect from global warming. Floods attributed to El Ni o made as many as half a million people homeless in Burma. In California, a barrage of mudslides and storms caused a state of emergency in 31 counties, with eight deaths and power blackouts in tens of thousands of homes. In Mexico in October 1997, more than 400 died due to Hurricane Pauline.