Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Tampa groups host heat safety sessions as temperatures raise
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Tampa groups host heat safety sessions as temperatures raise
Listen:
Summer is almost here and so is intense heat.
Last Saturday, eight local organizations held an event to educate Tampa residents on how to stay safe amid rising temperatures.
The day began with a presentation looking at heat over the last six decades in Tampa.
It showed that during the 2020s, the number of days with temperatures feeling above a hundred degrees were four times more than during the 1960s.
Karen Liller is the chair for the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health and she warned about the potential risks of underestimating the heat.
“The evidence is there. We are getting warmer, the earth is getting warmer, the states are getting warmer,” Liller said. “Florida is definitely getting warmer.”
This heat brings danger to human health.
Heat exhaustion comes with symptoms like excessive sweating, dizziness, cool pale skin, and risk of fainting.
In worse scenarios, a heat stroke can be deadly.
It starts as a rapid strong pulse, no sweating and soon after the person might lose their consciousness.
“Whom I really worry about is not so much people who can get to air conditioning or can get to fluids, but for people where that’s hard, that’s hard to have air conditioning or that is hard because they work outside,” Liller said.
Florida still doesn’t have a heat ordinance requiring shading or water breaks and workload adjustments for outdoor workers.
Construction and agricultural workers, gardeners and roofers are at higher risks.
In the same presentation, a meteorologist showed that in Tampa during the 2020s the number of 90 degree days per year were a hundred and twenty.
Double the number of 90 degree days per year during the 1970s.
In order to hold back the heat, panelists suggested things like switching to solar energy, using electric vehicles and getting involved with local governments.
However, all of those things take funding and resources.
Liller said those things are not realistic for everybody.
“I’m a big believer in making it affordable for everyone, making it a mandate so everyone can get this, not just people who are in positions of power or have a higher income,” Liller said.
The post Tampa groups host heat safety sessions as temperatures raise appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.
View all episodes
By Listen:
Summer is almost here and so is intense heat.
Last Saturday, eight local organizations held an event to educate Tampa residents on how to stay safe amid rising temperatures.
The day began with a presentation looking at heat over the last six decades in Tampa.
It showed that during the 2020s, the number of days with temperatures feeling above a hundred degrees were four times more than during the 1960s.
Karen Liller is the chair for the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health and she warned about the potential risks of underestimating the heat.
“The evidence is there. We are getting warmer, the earth is getting warmer, the states are getting warmer,” Liller said. “Florida is definitely getting warmer.”
This heat brings danger to human health.
Heat exhaustion comes with symptoms like excessive sweating, dizziness, cool pale skin, and risk of fainting.
In worse scenarios, a heat stroke can be deadly.
It starts as a rapid strong pulse, no sweating and soon after the person might lose their consciousness.
“Whom I really worry about is not so much people who can get to air conditioning or can get to fluids, but for people where that’s hard, that’s hard to have air conditioning or that is hard because they work outside,” Liller said.
Florida still doesn’t have a heat ordinance requiring shading or water breaks and workload adjustments for outdoor workers.
Construction and agricultural workers, gardeners and roofers are at higher risks.
In the same presentation, a meteorologist showed that in Tampa during the 2020s the number of 90 degree days per year were a hundred and twenty.
Double the number of 90 degree days per year during the 1970s.
In order to hold back the heat, panelists suggested things like switching to solar energy, using electric vehicles and getting involved with local governments.
However, all of those things take funding and resources.
Liller said those things are not realistic for everybody.
“I’m a big believer in making it affordable for everyone, making it a mandate so everyone can get this, not just people who are in positions of power or have a higher income,” Liller said.
The post Tampa groups host heat safety sessions as temperatures raise appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.