It sure is getting hot out there. As a chemical engineer, I have had the good fortune of always working inside of an air conditioned building as a process systems design engineer. I never worked inside the plant fence line. Thus, I just dont know how those guys are surviving out there.
Plant workers have to wear Nomex clothing, boots, hardhat, goggles, hearing protection; and sometimes around very hot equipment like a boiler or furnace or heat exchanger. How would you like to stand beside a Kellogg milli-second ethane cracker in this hot weather?
I am not going to get on my global warming soapbox today, but these temperatures are outrageous. I traveled to Spain and Greece a few summers ago and climbed around an old Islamic fort in Malaga and the Parthenon. Everyday was over 100 degrees. I came back to my hotel literally drenched in sweat.
I read in the book called “The Peloponnesian War”, by Thucydides, that back in that time, Pylos would receive snow during the winter. While in Athens, I asked people about that, and they said, “WHAT???”.
Please click the link below for a video produced by Channel 11 which discusses this heat wave in Houston.