It's time to take heat seriously

  • Published
  • By Nick Stubbs
  • Thunderbolt editor
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  "The heat was hot," read a famous opening line of a story once entered in a bad writing contest.

The inane and redundant nature of the sentence aside, it nevertheless sums up what we've been experiencing of late around Tampa Bay. So what is it that makes the heat hot? Three things, according to the team at the 6th Aerospace Medicine Squadron's Bio Environmental Engineering Flight.

Ambient temperature, radiant temperature and humidity are the three elements tracked through the bio team's Wet Bulb Globe Temperature monitoring program, under way now that we have entered that part of the year when heat stress dangers become a reality.

"It (the heat danger) is starting to rise now that we've hit June," said Staff Sgt. Derek Johnson, a bio environmental engineer craftsman. "It's been rising steadily."

The heat conditions are monitored with an instrument set outside the bio office on a tripod. It is always in direct sunlight, to ensure the radiant heat from the sun can be measured. That number, along with the air temperature and humidity are combined to determine a heat index number. That all-important number is what is used to inform the base population of how to safely work or exercise during the day.

There are two index charts, one for acclimated and one for those unacclimated to the local conditions. The latter is important, as many new Airmen not used to the Florida heat need to be particularly cautious, said Johnson.

Both charts use the same scale, but the work/rest schedules differ for those adjusted to the heat and those who are still acclimating.

In either case, the three best tips the bio team can give Airmen working outdoors at MacDill, said Johnson, is to "hydrate, hydrate, and hydrate."

That advice is followed with adhering to the cycles of work and rest, based on the intensity of the work, rated from "easy," to "moderate," followed by "hard," each providing guidelines supervisors use to work and rest their teams.