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?

The tube is boiling even in normal summer. Fortunately for me, it’s over ground train and much more comfortable in the office than at home but if I had more than 15min tube i’d think differently.

It would be interesting to know how much crossover there is between the posters who hide behind the sofa when the doorbell rings and the ones advising others to just get on with things like we did in the blitz. I'm guessing quite a bit.

Zero empathy too.

Totally ignores someone talking about having had chemo and tells them to “engage your brain love”. Not what you’d expect from someone in a senior role anywhere, sounds like a total chav.

FFS, it's 'just a bit of sunshine'. Posts like this make my blood boil.

It's 25 degrees today, a pleasant summer's day in the UK and the normal peak of our temperatures. On Thursday, it is going to be very likely 40 degrees. That is 15 degrees hotter than it is today. Humidity is going to be high. It is going to be deeply unpleasant for the majority of people, some people will likely die and some of our infrastructure could well buckle. A red heat alert is not 'just a bit of sunshine'.

There is some absolute pig ignorance surrounding the climate emergency, there really is.

We need to be indoors at home. So no baggage handling for aircraft. Too hot to be working. Theme parks closed. Staff/customers could die. Emergency services to only come out in an emergency and will shout instructions from a shaded area. Better close the beaches as well. People won't take the heat seriously so it's for their own good

The "danger to life" is for the very elderly, or poorly or very young

No, it isn't. That would be a Yellow weather warning, not a Red one.

What we have for the south-east this week is a Red warning, which specifically states that there are 'Significant health risks to the wider population' - in other words, not just the most vulnerable.

Normal healthy adults who take appropriate precautions will be fine

Yes, but the 'appropriate precautions' for a Red heat alert in the UK are, in fact, to avoid travelling.

Obviously people can decide for themselves what they want to do, and of course, for some people, there will be no choice but to travel. But before people start spouting bollocks, they really ought to actually know what they're actually fucking commenting on, because people saying 'Oh, we get loads of these warnings' and 'It's only if you're especially vulnerable' apparently haven't actually read and understood any of the information before opining on it.

FWIW: no, we don't get lots of these warnings. We get a fair few Yellow weather alerts for various different weather conditions, but Red ones are very rare.

If you're in a union then they should be making a fuss

I would call in sick otherwise

Maybe one day you’ll need it and the nurse won’t turn up because they want to stay home because it’s too hot for them 🤷‍♀️!

And don’t address me as “love” you’re are weaponising it to be derogatory and offensive term.

Anyway, enjoy the tube, hopefully if you do suffer a risk to your life the medical team have managed to get in during the heat and save you,

from the Times.
Hugh Montgomery professor of intensive care at UCL

Heatwaves are not to be celebrated with ice cream and pictures of beaches.
Heatwaves are to be feared.

Assessing risks means looking at what mitigations you can put in place to reduce the risk. If you've got to work at height then you just have to make it as safe as possible. If you could accomplish the same task on the ground then it would be silly to climb a ladder to do it.

Same thing here, if it is possible to work from home and avoid the travelling risk then surely it's a no brainer to do that? You can't do that for your job, but I would expect your employer to be making all the adjustments they can. For example, in my organisation, when the conditions make it too dangerous to travel to work our essential workers would be put up in a nearby hotel.

It is not helpful to infer that we should make everyone who can work at home travel into the office because you have to work in the clinic.

Bloody hell, that sounds nasty.

I remember when it was ridiculously hot in 2022, and went somewhere in the countryside, which felt much cooler despite not really being that much cooler than the town I was living in.

Or maybe if you’re lucky the tube driver will be able to work from home…

Well; it would be faster if you jogged or run to work. Aim for a moderate 8mph.
stop trying to skive from work

And how many more of those medical teams would be needed because employers want presenteeism so even MORE ppl will be travelling. Another lack of critical thinking

So if someone has to work in a particular enviroment, nobody else in any other job should be encouraged to adapt working practices or consider mitigations?
How odd.

seriously; if it were me; I’d work from
home and tell employer that you’re not risking your health. You’re not irreplaceable to your employer: your health is much more important

Try Central line Wednesday.... you'll change your mind

Oh and for all those poster saying OP should just suck it up or walk for several hours in blistering heat to get to work, It's going to be extra, extra humid, apparently.

So not like the nice dry heat in most of the places you go for your summer holidays then.

No, it’s a one rule for all surely?

You wouldn’t expect someone to risk their life for you would you? So if you call for an ambulance, surely it’s ok to say they didn’t come in this morning because it’s a risk to their life!

How odd you’d expect someone to risk their life for you or one of your family!

I'd have thought encouraging people who can work from home to stay there would be useful for the emergency services and hospitals, as well as public transport, as less people are generating less heat.

But oddly enough, that's exactly what happened during the covid epidemic.

As ive pointed out the more ppl that are travelling the more ppl will get ill so more resources will be needed...................

UNLESS YOU know something we dont like the NHS not being as short staffed as they claim to be because thats the only logical conclusion to be drawn from posts like yours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So different businesses can not adapt working practices for the benefit of their office based workforce because a train driver has to be on a train? Or a nurse has to be on the ward?

Exactly. Of course many people doing important jobs will be forced to travel to work, if at all possible. But many people don't need to travel, so it would be sensible to let them work from home.

I feel very sorry for people doing manual work in the open air, especially if having to wear heavy clothing. On a red alert day, they shouldn't have to do that, especially not at the hottest part of the day.

God almighty, there's some spectacular and wilful ignorance on this thread. "A bit of sunshine" FFS.

I imagine there's a fairly large crossover with the climate change deniers.