hmm - 41 degrees and 68% humidity - shakes wet bulb thingy
Theoretically, humans cannot survive - O.o
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Daaaaaaaaaaammmmn
Hot, cold, windy, rainy - a few days of any in extreme and we crumble or more correctly the media like to make us think we should and can’t cope. It makes you wonder how we have become such a dominant animal.
Personally I’m quite enjoying it being warm, not that you can say it. Frankly I dislike windy weather, cold snaps and heavy rain, as they really are annoying. Sunny doesn’t knock over fences, flood roads or make surfaces slippery.
I’m hoping the forecast of continuing warm weather into the school hols is right. I can get some things done around the house.
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No, ‘sunny’ doesn’t. But we’re not just talking about a little bit of sun. We’re talking multiple days of 35C+, expecting 40C+. What this can and will cause, similar to you examples, will be literally melting the roads in places as they just not designed for that heat. It’ll expand railway tracks, causing major issues there. It’ll massively increase the strain on the water and power networks, with the potential of water pressure issues/power issues.
They’re not just calling it a risk to life for fun. There are some serious risks here, and I’ve just listed a couple of them.
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Nobody talking about Nijmegen here it seems?
Comparable temperatures to 2006 when it was cancelled … after two deaths.
Yet we’ve still started to bus the kids out there.
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Well it’s outside of the amber and red watching area so it’s so good, right? 
Seriously though, I’m less worried about Nijmegen as the cadets going should ask be well trained and practised, albeit not in the heat. They should only be going if they’ve proved themselves fit enough for the task.
Also isn’t most of the walking done in the early morning to avoid the heat? I’ve not been so am not sure but that’s what I’ve heard before.
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There’s nothing incorrect with that statement, they do go early but they will be out in the peak, doing very physical activity … the maximum temperature they’ve trained in probably hasn’t gone over 20.
Risky business given the forecast and 2006.
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So if they’re out in the peak, I wonder how the hell they meet the work/time/heat guidelines in the JSP? 
It was hotter than 32 degrees at Nijmegen in 2006. It was 34 in the shade. The temperature in the sun was higher.
As someone who was there, and been there in hot weather since, the event changed as a result. They made the start times more flexible, and will push them up more readily. Weight gets dropped quicker and the planning is better.
It’s been proper scorchio in the years since, and issues at Nijmegen have been less. No one’s really talking about the event because of all the events we run in the heat and humidity it’s the one which is best planned, managed and run to deal with it.
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Looks like they are making the call on Sunday on whether it goes ahead, so we’ll see…
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Let’s apply them.
You need to be at Nijmegen days early, this is to acclimatise the team to the local conditions, that’s why you must arrive 3 days in advance.
Taking the adult acclimatised table as a guide, marching at normal walking pace, (and for Nijmegen marchers who have been training 6 months, 5-6k IS their normal pace now.) So that’s moderate work.
Up to 26 degrees there’s no restrictions, and most of the marching should be done before it gets hotter than that.
From there up it gets more difficult, but you can still work with rests. Although most team leaders will tell you that it’s better to finish sooner with less rest en route, and spend your rest time back at camp with a fanta by the paddling pool.
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If RC W&W and his TSA are heading out there to directly understand the risk they will no doubt wait for intel from on the ground.
It is a pain if everyone ends up getting bussed out and then told to go home but better to at least give them the chance of a go ahead than no chance at all.
I just hope they listen to those on the ground.
A few years back, the medical unit posted to Nij was one that had no experience of the event, and they handed out more red cards for minor issues than any other year. Things that most experienced team leaders would know would resolve by the next day resulted in immediate red cards, so that perfectly healthy cadets were kicking their heels all week because they were a bit dehydrated after day one.
The next effect was that team leaders refused to send minor issues to the med tent, fearful of wasting 6 months of training for the individuals concerned, which is the opposite of what you want really from a med team.
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The opposite of what I’d expect from a CFAV actually - them refusing to follow the laid out protocols and potentially adding risk because ‘they know best’ I don’t think that would carry much weight in the event of an incident but it’s OK they’re the Team Leaders they know best by the sounds of it.
Actually if you’ve ever been in coroners court they tend to value reasoned decision making over everything else.
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In this case. Yes. Yes we all did. That’s the point of the story. Experience was key, not just walking in and thinking you know everything.
Perhaps all the team leaders should club together and make the decision on whether it’s safe to carry on with the event this year … rather than have someone who’s paid to assess and handle the risk to make the decision for you, because the team leaders know best.
A wise commander would have the team leaders in, all of them, and listen to the experience on offer. If you put all of the Nijmegen team leaders into a tent, you would have decades, if not centuries of experience of walking that event, often in high temperatures and humidity.
The thing with Nijmegen, and CFAVs who don’t do it, may not know, but it’s one of the events where every team leader, be they regular, reserve or cadet forces, is treated like an adult, they all have the same responsibilities and the same goal: get the team around safely.
At the end of the day, the decision is the boss’ whether it be OC BMC or RCO W&W this time, but as even blue leadership teaches in this organisation, seeking out experience is one of the first things any decent leader should do.
And the Team Leaders are not the reckless stupid bunch you seem to think we are, we didn’t not send anyone to the med centre who didn’t NEED to go that year. We just knew not to send minor cases, that would recover quickly, because the medics, who had no experience, were red carding any and everything, when med teams, often from reserve units in previous years would have let them carry on. What was happening was cadets were going to the med tent for blisters, and being red carded for mild heat exhaustion, straight after the marches, the same cadets would then be absolutely fine after dinner, unsurprisingly, but their event was over.
The beauty of this weekend’s heat policy is it doesn’t do what the wind stop did, and basically say that all of our experience was irrelevant and none of us could be trusted. It makes us justify our decisions, rethink our plans, apply new measures and deploy the experience the staff have.
And if at the end of the day, the risk is too great, noone should be ashamed to can an event. Nijmegen has been canned before, and it could be again.
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Hear hear!
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I’m getting wind that the first day of the marches has been cancelled because of the heat. Seems like a sensible decision if true.
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