Work not taking red alert seriously

[Founderflower]

Why are some people not taking the red weather warning seriously? Where I am it’s 39 degrees on Wed/ Thur but ‘feels like’ 42 according to BBC.

At work they’re expecting everyone in - the office is air conditioned, so fine, but we’re central London so everyone needs to schlep in on public transport.

Red means a danger to life and not just for vulnerable people. Some people who are healthy will die because of the weather. There’s warnings of power outages and transport failures. So what happens if we get stuck on a broken down underground train?

I KNOW other countries see these temps regularly. But they are prepared for dealing with it. England is not and it fucks up. I don’t want a heart attack from sitting in 48 degree heat on a train. I’m really stressed out!

If it were a red warning around severe wind or rain or flooding they wouldn’t be telling everyone to come in! So why is heat seen differently?

BINGO!

I think you'd be perfectly reasonable to just call in sick OP, given that we're being told it's going to be hot enough to cause loss of life, even in healthy people.

I know some people will have to have to accept it and just try to get to work as best they can, but unless your job is essential I think your bosses are being unfair and short sighted.

As a couple of pps have said it's not unknown for train rails to buckle in heat much less than the 40 degrees the met office has predicted and yes, you could get stuck on the tube. Anyone who has ever travelled on the tube regularly will know how hellish it is travelling when the temperature is normal, let alone when there's a red heat alert.

I have to be in London all week, I have a main train and a tube journey then a 20 minute walk to a non air conditioned office (total journey time 90 minutes), followed by a repeat journey home and the train home has no air con, its overcrowded and is often standing room only for half the journey.
I will wear a floaty dress, have plenty of water and carry a fan. I wont go for a lunchtime walk and will stay acclimatised the office temperature all day. It sucks but there's no way my NHS bosses will say don't come in. Plan appropriately and dress correctly

Calm the feck down. We are going to have some hot weather.

I’ve purposely booked a desk for the rest of the week to enjoy the aircon. Luckily I can get the dlr in(if the rails don’t melt) and avoid the tube.

It's 17 miles from my house (in London) to the office in Mayfair (I'm now retired, thank goodness!). None of the public transport I needed to take was air conditioned, and neither was the office. Grim.

Glad to be able to provide some reassurance @Founderflower.

I did try and call the government to let them know my thoughts but wasn’t able to speak to anyone. Apparently there’s a lot going on there today.

Have you never been on the London Underground? It's about 1000 degrees hotter than surface temperature.

Same with my DH, he works on the roads in thick fireproof PPE.

We are in Essex and it's going to be like the bowels of hell mid week, I'm really worried about him.

The Ignorance on this thread is something.

How many people have a commute in a reasonable walking distance from work? Even if it was it might not be feasible with other commitments such as childcare drop offs prior to commute. Even if a short walk it could be dangerous for some in these temps. Some people are already commuting by foot, bus, train and tube. A lot of commuters will be doing a daily commute of 10 or more miles (which in London takes forever). Temperatures on the underground do exceed 40. Being a built up area does not make it cooler!

Totally agree with you op. My school hasn't cancelled sports day. Same thing happened a few years ago, cancelled because of light drizzle but the following week ran in 30+ degrees

Today? What today, when, in London, it is roughly ten degrees cooler than it is predicted to be on Wednesday and Thursday?

I also think that some (healthy) people really really struggle in the heat. Like, really struggle. And some healthy people just don't. So the ones who don't struggle are like oh FFS pull yourselves together, put your big girl pants on with a floaty dress, it's just a bit of heat, carry on as normal. But a little empathy -- some people just don't cope in heat. I am actually normally OK but there are others in my family really really do not. And no, they would not cope living in central Spain, even with all the aircon and siestas. The heatwave IS a change in our environmental conditions, even if for a short while, and some people just do really struggle with it; and most of our buildings are not aircon. I grew up in a tropical country, and we had aircon in every building. Makes a huge difference. The only time you got hot was moving from one building to another.

Because they have their priorities arse about face!

Tell me you’ve never ridden the tube in summer without telling me

I'm guessing you have not travelled the Central Line in rush hour?!

Whereabouts in the west midlands? Bbc suggests 34/35, not 39 or 40?? Theres quite a big difference

The last hot day their chargehand threw up with the heat and they were all showing signs of heat stress. And they work at height.

The tube is grim in the summer, but I think there are a lot of people who seem to have no clue (and not particularly care) that there are thousands of people expected to do hard physical jobs out in the blazing heat with zero concessions made for the weather.

Of course it isn't stupid to suggest walking!

If OP works in the square mile and commutes from Waterloo, she might prefer a 45min walk to Liverpool St..

OR she might work at canary wharf and could switch to the boat which DH always does when the tubes are bad.

The BBC forecasts are lower than the Met Office for some reason.

The Met Office forecast for Birmingham is 38 on Wednesday and 39 on Thursday.

Not always The HA replaced our roof (block of flats) in the summer of 2020 and for the last week of July the roofers didnt work at all due to the heat

It’s not 39C today.

How awful are you, seriously?

That's because the red alert starts on Wednesday. It's not that hot yet.

London forecast at 5pm:

Today: 27 degrees
Tues: 35 degrees
Wed: 36 degrees
Thurs: 34 degrees.

Hard of thinking person, clearly!!