JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The record-breaking heat in Jacksonville Thursday comes just before Florida's new law impacting heat safety requirements takes effect.
The law, House Bill 433, prohibits municipalities from making employers add new heat protections for workers. Some people support the law and some are against it, but they can all agree it's hot to work outside.
“I think this temperature has gone up a degree since we’ve been out here, like in the last five minutes,” said Rebecca Isola, owner of Isolabella Farm in Jacksonville.
Isola knows what it’s like to work in the heat.
“I’m watering these like twice a day,” she said as she pointed to plants in her greenhouse.
Isola and another Jacksonville farmer, Brian Lapinski with Down to Earth Farm, said the heat dictates what they can do and when they can do it.
“Yeah, it’s miserable,” Lapinski said about the weather.
What Isola doesn't have to worry about as a one-woman-band small business is the law prohibiting municipalities or boards from making employers meet additional heat exposure requirements. Businesses still have to follow Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.
Sierra Club President Logan Cross does not support the new law. He said it could cost lives.
“Why is it bad to pass any local legislation or anything like that that makes it safer for people to work outdoors?” Cross said.
But Tim Conlan, president of the local roofing company Reliant Roofing disagrees and supports the new law. He said it would be impossible to manage crews in different counties without regulations consistent across the state.
“We might have a crew in every county every day," Conlan said. "And to be able to manage that would be impossible if there was a different set of requirements county to county.”
Conlan said they have weekly and sometimes daily safety meetings and heat is the hot topic right now.
The National Weather Service says heat is the biggest weather-related killer. According to the CDC, every year extreme heat kills more than 1200 people in the country.
The new law takes effect July 1.