Leaves this page right away, and so does pressing Escape twice on a keyboard. It cannot erase your history, so if someone checks this device, use one they cannot reach.

If you are cold right now

Call 211, or text your zip code to 898211. They track who has space across Sioux Falls and are available 24 hours a day. If you are worried about someone outside, same number - 211.

The honest part about overnight

The last door in Sioux Falls closes at 10pm. If it’s before 10pm, there are some options here: Local and Immediate Help.

Between about 10pm and 6am there is no general warming space in Sioux Falls. Two doors are open all night and both are narrow: The Link, 132 N Dakota Ave, which is detox and crisis stabilization, and Children's Home, 605-338-4880, which is for people escaping abuse.

If it is the middle of the night, 211 is still the number, whether it is for you or for someone you have seen.

If you are outside tonight

Wet is what does it, not just the cold. Heat leaves a wet body much faster than a dry one. If your clothes are wet, getting out of them and into anything dry is worth more than anything else on this page.

Wind does the same thing. It pulls the warm air off your skin and keeps pulling. At zero degrees with a 15 mile an hour wind, bare skin can freeze in half an hour. Getting out of the wind is worth more than another layer standing in it. Cover as much skin as you can.

Avoid alcohol. It makes you feel warm because it opens your blood vessels, which is the opposite of what your body needs, and it turns down shivering, which is how your body makes its own heat. The warmth is a false feeling and it is costing you.

Be aware of your body. People with hypothermia are usually not aware of it, because the confusion is one of the symptoms. Do not wait until you “feel bad enough.” If you are wet and cannot get dry, if you have stopped shivering, or if your hands have stopped working, that is the point to call 911. Cold is a medical emergency and they will come for it.

Buuut,

this is what to do when there is nothing else, and it is not the same as being inside. If there is a door you can get to, take the door. Call 211 first and keep calling.

Hypothermia

It looks like being drunk. Confusion, slurred speech, fumbling hands, stumbling. People get walked past and left outside because someone assumed they were drinking. Also: shivering, exhaustion, memory loss, drowsiness. In a baby, bright red cold skin and almost no energy.

Get them somewhere warm. Take off wet clothes. Warm the middle of the body first, chest, neck, head, groin, with blankets or skin to skin. Warm drinks if they are awake, nothing with alcohol in it. If they are unconscious, handle them gently and call 911.

Frostbite

Early it is red skin and pain. Then it goes white or greyish yellow, firm or waxy, and numb.

What not to do matters more than what to do:

• Do not rub it. Not with your hands, and certainly not with snow.
• Do not put direct heat on it. No heat lamp, no hair dryer, no heating pad, no car heater, no stove. Frozen skin cannot feel a burn, so you won’t notice when the damage increases.
• Do not walk on frostbitten feet, unless there is no other choice.
• Do not warm it up if it might freeze again. It sounds backwards, but refreezing does far worse damage than staying frozen. If you are going back outside, leave it.

If you can get somewhere warm and stay there, soak it in water that’s warm to the touch, a temperature comfortable on a non-injured hand. Never hot. About half an hour. Take any rings off, as there may be swelling.

Staying warm without poisoning yourself

Carbon monoxide has no smell and no color. The symptoms are headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain and confusion, which is also what being cold and exhausted feels like.

• Never a generator indoors. Not in a garage, not in a carport, not by a window. Outside, at least 20 feet from the building, exhaust pointed away. An open garage door does not make it safe. Generators kill more than a hundred people a year in this country.
• Never charcoal or a grill or a camp stove indoors.
• Never the gas oven as a heater. This is the one people reach for when the heat is off and the power is still on. There is no safe version of it.
• A running car is dangerous. If there is no other option, clear the snow away from the tailpipe before and while it runs, run the motor about ten minutes an hour rather than continuously, and crack a window on the downwind side. That is harm reduction, not safety.

Electric space heaters make no carbon monoxide. Their risk is fire and overloaded outlets, which is a different problem.

What is not here yet

The full shelter list with hours and costs, whether any shelter takes pets, and a list of warm places to sit during the day. We are calling to confirm those instead of copying them out of a directory.

Checked as of October 12, 2026.