Alert designed to protect outdoor workers is praised for its composure after declining to go off
HONG KONG – The city’s heat stress warning system, created to tell outdoor workers when conditions have become dangerous, is under fire after failing to raise an alert even as temperatures reached a record high. Eco-Business set out the complaints in its report on calls to protect the city’s outdoor workers. Defenders of the system say it performed exactly as designed, in the sense that it did not panic.
An Alarm With Excellent Boundaries
At the Office of Thermal Reassurance, a fourth-floor unit with strong air conditioning, spokesman Felix Chiu defended the record. “A warning that goes off every time it is hot would lose credibility,” he said. “Ours has kept its credibility completely intact. It has barely been used.”
Mr Chiu explained that the index weighs temperature, humidity, sunlight and wind. “It considers all four,” he said, “and then, like many of us, it decides it would rather not get involved.”
On a bamboo scaffold in Kwun Tong, eleven storeys up, Lau Wing-kei offered a field assessment. “I checked my phone at two o’clock. No warning,” said Mr Lau, 52. “Then the phone itself showed a warning. It said the phone was too hot and needed to shut down and rest. So the phone has better labour protection than I do.”
The Warning Levels, as Understood on Site
- Amber: It is hot. You knew.
- Red: It is very hot. Your supervisor has been informed and is thinking about it from indoors.
- Black: The highest level. Workers speak of it the way sailors speak of sea creatures. “My cousin’s foreman saw one in 2023.”
- Nothing: The most frequently issued level, and the only one with a perfect attendance record.
Workers Develop Their Own Instruments
In the absence of official signals, the workforce has built a parallel system. Street cleaner Fung Siu-lan, 61, has swept the same four blocks of Sham Shui Po for nineteen years and reads the pavement like a barometer.
“When the pigeons walk instead of fly, that is amber,” Madam Fung said. “When the security guard carries his chair inside the lobby, that is red. When the tourists stop photographing the skyline and go to stand in the convenience store beside the drinks fridge, that is black. I have never been wrong. Nobody has asked me to join a committee.”
Other trades keep their own scales. Scaffolders rate a day by the number of shirts it consumes, with a three-shirt day considered the threshold for complaint. A drinks stall on Apliu Street reports iced lemon tea sales by 11 am as a leading indicator. Its owner says his fridge has called more heatwaves than the app, and that the fridge also tells him when he is out of lemons.
Technology Offers to Help
Researchers elsewhere in the region are exploring whether artificial intelligence could improve forecasting. One recent assessment found that AI weather prediction is quick and cheap, though its errors cannot be tracked or explained. Several workers said that sounded like the arrangement they already had.
Dr Mabel Tsang of the Institute of Occupational Climate believes the fault lies in where the measuring is done. “The reference station is in a location I am told is breezy and pleasant,” she said. “The work sites are between glass towers at noon, standing on tarmac, next to a generator. The data is accurate. It is simply accurate about somewhere nicer.”
Management Responds
Employers have not been idle. A contractors’ association issued guidance recommending “hydration, shade and a positive attitude,” and distributed 4,000 paper fans printed with the slogan “Safety Starts With You.” A foreman in Tseung Kwan O reported that the fans were popular and that the slogan had been crossed out on most of them by lunch.
A second measure, the Cooling Rest Corner, has been rolled out at selected sites. It consists of a parasol, a plastic stool and a laminated sign explaining its benefits. At one location in Kai Tak the corner was installed in direct sunlight, because that was where the sign fitted. Workers use it to dry their shirts. The contractor has recorded this as full utilisation.
Conditions were felt across the social spectrum. In Central, office staff reported that their tower had been cooled to 19 degrees and that several of them required cardigans. One banker described the walk from the station exit to his lobby as “brutal, the full ninety seconds,” and said he had needed a moment in the revolving door.
A Review Is Announced
The Office of Thermal Reassurance has confirmed a review of its thresholds. It will be conducted once the weather is cooler and everyone can think clearly. Mr Chiu expects findings in January, “when the data will be much more comfortable to work with.” Madam Fung was told she could submit her pigeon observations in writing, in triplicate, by post.
The affair has found readers well beyond the harbour. Bohiney Magazine likened the system to an American smoke detector with the battery removed for convenience, and The London Prat pointed out that Britain declares a national emergency when the thermometer touches 30 degrees and the rails buckle, and proposed that the two territories split the difference.
Mr Lau came down from the scaffold at six. His phone had cooled enough to switch back on. It showed no official warnings and one message from his wife, sent at noon, telling him it was hot.
SOURCE: bohiney.com
