The sun and warm weather the approaching summer months will bring to most jobsites mean you must take special precautions to prevent heat-related injury, illness and death.
One of the hottest, and most dangerous, areas of the country for construction work during the summer is Texas. Concrete and asphalt worksites in this state regularly exceed 100 degrees from late May until early September.
“It does get very hot in Texas,” said Paul Causey, north Texas area manager for that states’s chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America. “It’s one of those things we have to deal with.”
Causey said because many contractors are familiar with weather conditions in Texas, heat-related incidents are not common.
Mitch Beckman, director of human and organization performance for AUI Contractors in Fort Worth, Texas, said no sign of heat fatigue is taken lightly on the jobsite.
Project managers are trained to spot signs of exhaustion brought on by a combination of heat, humidity and physical labor. “They maintain water religiously [for workers],” he said.
Most Texas general contractors are familiar with safety precautions for working in high temperature environments, Beckman said. Subcontractors often need supervision in certain situations, such as when working on roofs or enclosed spaces. “We don’t let people work alone,” he said.
