Heat is a frequently underestimated occupational hazard of the construction industry, according to Pete Stafford, Executive Director of the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR).
While extreme storms like tornadoes and hurricanes get most of the media attention, a far simpler weather condition – heat -- is much deadlier. Heat kills an average of 658 people every year -- more than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and lightning combined. In the disastrous heat wave of 1980, more than 1,250 people died. In the heat wave of 1995 more than 700 deaths in the Chicago area were attributed to heat. In August 2003, a record heat wave in Europe claimed an estimated 50,000 lives.
Planning ahead for hot weather and making sure that the appropriate precautionary measures are in place before work begins are critical components in preventing workers from reaching their physical limits.
The most basic and most widely used form of cooled personal protective equipment (PPE) is vests that use phase change material (PCM) for thermal energy storage.
Construction workers in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee learned about the dangers of working in summer heat at a one-hour safety stand-down today conducted by OSHA, employers and trade associations.
