Phil Dave on the heatwave and subsequent damage in the UK
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208.5371
Summary
Extreme weather warnings have been issued across the UK and Canada over the past few days, with temperatures reaching record highs in some areas, causing widespread panic and panic among the emergency services. What are the dangers of such extreme conditions, and what can we do to deal with them?
Transcript
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are things starting to stabilize and recover over there now oh thank heavens i mean it's the usual
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mugginess that one would expect to experience in a british summertime that's about what we've
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got at the moment i think the last time i checked the temperature today it was in the early 20s so
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that's much more bearable to give you some sense of context what the london fire brigade have
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experienced over the last couple of days when we were experiencing temperatures in the late 30s and
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even the early 40s in the uk which is just unprecedented never heard of that before
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the fire brigade said that they had their busiest day get this since world war ii so that is how
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bad the situation actually became because obviously the heat meant there were so many
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fires all over the place the emergency services just couldn't cope well yeah and people have to
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bear in mind i mean you know temperatures that might be okay in one area can be a crisis somewhere
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else i mean you're used to moderate temperatures it's just like in texas their world comes to a
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halt if they get an inch of snow but uh but 40 degree weather and they don't bat an eye and likewise
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in cooler or more moderate climates when you get a heat wave like that we're just not ready to cope with
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it but i think that's the thing exactly the same way that over in canada i know that you guys are
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fantastic when it comes to dealing with say a lot of snow whereas over here okay we can deal with a
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bit of it but not too much but it seems to be extremes of any weather we can't cope with here
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and the main reason for that is because extremes on all fronts whether it's extreme heat extreme
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snow extreme rain whatever it is is such a rarity that we don't have the equipment standing by to deal
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with this kind of extreme weather so take for example the extreme heat recently i know a lot
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of buildings across the pond and in certain parts of the middle east would as standard have air
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conditioning fitted within that building to deal with this kind of weather whereas here air conditioning
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is just something for people of a luxury you know that it's not really standard in most buildings
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here certainly houses don't really have air conditioning okay most modern office buildings do
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but certainly not old ones and it's because we just don't need it normally yeah and it's it's
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similar here you know a lot of us can just get by we'll get a few hot days a year where you'll open
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the windows and turn on the fans but we can get by without air conditioning but you get those
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protracted heat waves and for i guess vulnerable people like seniors and and people with respiratory
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issues it can be very dangerous to be exposed to heat for such long periods has there been somewhere
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where people could retreat to at least when it was that hot or somewhere to get out of the house
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things like that not really this is the problem and especially so that that was actually one of
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the warnings that came with this extreme weather is that we were being told by professionals and by
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our leaders and things like that that they wanted to make sure that those who are older those who maybe
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do have respiratory issues making sure they were protecting themselves and made sure that they took
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the proper precautions so making sure they have plenty of air circulating if they had any fans they could
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access then that'd be great also make sure that they maybe drank plenty of water all the time all
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of the standard advice that you would expect to receive in extreme conditions i think though cory my
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favorite bit of advice so that we received over the past few days from the officials and i don't think i
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would have thought of this without the guidance of the powers that be is they said under no circumstances
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should anyone be tempted to wear quote unquote a woolly hat thanks i don't think i would have thought of
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that myself i'm glad they offered that advice to everybody yeah we have those over here too
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with the fires i mean one of our commenters bridget frost had saying like what did spark the fires
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though i mean the heat can exacerbate exacerbate it but why were so many fires lit like what had
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happened to cause them in the first place it's a great question i don't think we know all the answers
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to be honest i think some of the worst damage we saw was actually in the east end of london
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where there was a a cluster of houses we very much the buildings over here typical houses are
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terrace houses so all in a row all joined to each other and there was i think a chain of about five
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houses in the east end of london that caught a blaze and although it's not completely clear what
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it is it could have been a patch of dry grass that may be spread to the building it could have even been a
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cigarette butts from someone sort of just not extinguishing it properly and of course in the
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heat it caught fire but i've heard horror stories of people leaving items on windowsills that they
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don't think will actually magnify or intensify the heat silly things up for example you know those snow
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globe things so i've heard like sort of stories of some people leaving a snow globe on the windowsill not
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actually appreciating how the sun can magnify through a glass sphere like that and that
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catching a light so it's all stuff like that it's just that we've never experienced before so causes
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are still i think being decided in a lot of the cases where sadly people's homes did catch fire but
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as a result of it now you know i think the most important thing to remember or to note as this stage
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is we haven't heard of any loss of life thank goodness and that's the most important thing now that
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maybe just because those statistics haven't come out yet but most importantly is that it would appear
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as though that that we haven't experienced that so far so how about with your your power grid and
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your load because i i do know that like you know it takes a heck of a lot more energy actually to cool
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down an environment than to heat it and in areas with heat waves quite often you can suddenly get
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blackouts and brownouts that kind of happens in canada occasionally too with the people who do have
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air conditioning they blasted up full blast and it overwhelms the grid sometimes it did it hold out out
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there as far as i know yes it did which is terrific i don't actually think that that was too much of a
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problem because to tell you the truth with the rising cost of energy over here i don't know what
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it's like over in canada but with the rising cost of energy over here i strongly suspect that people
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were too afraid to and i'm genuinely serious when i say too afraid to use their electricity because the
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problem is that energy bills are so just they're just flat out extortion now so horrendously expensive over
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here that a lot of people are actually choosing not to even bother really using that much electricity
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so i wouldn't be surprised if that swayed an awful lot of people's decision on how they were going to
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keep cool in the heat and i strongly suspect that they probably just didn't even bother half people
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turning on the fans and stuff like that yeah our power is not a heck of a lot cheaper over here if at all
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as well so uh it makes people reconsider some of their decisions but sometimes as i said if you're vulnerable
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or vulnerable you're a senior or something like that you might not have a choice yeah i was sure
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no no i very much hope that people made the sensible decision and thought to themselves well look
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even if you do spend a bit more money on one or two days of extreme heat make up for it elsewhere and
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hopefully that's exactly what they did and i hope very much that people who were in that position did
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stay safe but as i say i mean it's all about sort of waiting for these statistics to come out over the
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coming days as it stands you know we're talking about the start of this week monday and tuesday
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of this very week that we're talking about and so so at the end of the week it's still a bit early days
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to know for sure all of the statistics involved with the heat but what we do know is that the uk
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actually broke its own record and tops the 40 degrees celsius mark which we haven't done before
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yeah so well before i let you go then how is your forecast looking it's cooled down a bit for the
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moment is it looking like it should stay stable for the next while thank heavens it looks like
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we're going back to good old blighty again and we can expect some rain in the coming days so we'll be
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much happier i'm sure okay well i appreciate you coming in to check in with us you know and just get
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a a direct account to how it's going over there and uh like i said we're in some of a moderated
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moderate climate here too so we we can relate when uh heat put knocks us down more than it does with
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others uh and then it can become a pretty dangerous situation so i'm glad it sounds like there's been
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no casualties so far and hopefully more uh policies and infrastructure come into place so you're not so
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vulnerable in it for future heat waves absolutely well here is hoping and i i think that sort of one
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thing that we are all aware of is that these freak occurrences may happen a little more often as to
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what the cause of that is that's a great subject of discussion over here a lot of people obviously
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attributing it towards climate change a lot of people just saying hey it's just the summer time
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chill out what's the problem so that in itself is causing great debate but let's just say that i
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think that whatever the reason behind it is i think we can all agree that we need to be better prepared
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for certainly extreme heat but as i said unfortunately preparations for extreme weather of any sorts
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in the uk has never necessarily been our strong point oh and uh and as you said yeah the discussion is to
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the cause is a heated one and it is over here for those things too and i can see it in my comment
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scroll but that that's a whole other show that we could fill a heck of a lot more time on so
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anytime great i appreciate the update and yeah perhaps uh we can check in with you again down the
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road on uh uk issues uh you know because it's uh always good to get direct uh information from
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somebody out there on the ground it would be a great pleasure sir all right well thank you very much
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thank you very much and i will talk to you again sometime thank you corey