From melting sandals on the sidewalk to baking cookies in your car, here’s how people survive
in the hottest places!!
10.
Heatwave in Arizona
When the heat really start peaking, it seems very little can be done to cope except for
staying indoors.
The heatwave in Arizona in 2017, which saw temperatures reaching 113 degrees Fahrenheit,
showed how everything can come to a standstill, and that things simply aren’t designed to
withstand such warmth.
In images that seem reminiscent of a Salvador Dali painting, virtually everything started
to melt!
Dustbins on the sidewalk began revealing the trash they contained, and water bottles inside
cars began expanding- you’d have thought Fiji water came from a hot enough climate
in the first place!
Even walls began to melt away, along with mailboxes and the lettering on street signs.
That didn’t deter the hardy locals from finding ways around the problems, though.
In an environment where you start to fear touching handles, or anything else made of
metal, the local Denny’s came up with an ingenious solution- they attached an oven
mitt to their front door, which enabled customers to enter without suffering first degree burns
before enjoying their pancakes!
Those metal door handles are HOT!!!
9.
Melting Sandals
If you dream of living somewhere warm, especially when even at this time of the year it’s
been snowing, make sure you think it through before you drop everything and move.
Higher temperatures make things work a lot differently to what you might be used to,
and even sidewalks and roads become dangerous.
The tarmac used to build them is really efficient at absorbing heat, and this can cause havoc
with everyday objects like shoes.
This video from India in 2016 shows the full effect in action.
It was recorded in the town of Valsad on a day where temperatures had reached almost
100 degrees Fahrenheit.
This amount of heat causes rubber to melt and, in some cases, can cause shoes to stick
to the road.
The first boy that crosses is forced to run to the other side when this happens to him,
with the surface being far too hot for him to tread on barefooted.
The danger with this is the approaching traffic, and the other two people crossing have to
abandon their shoes in the face of oncoming vehicles.
Also if you’ve been to Vegas, you know the feeling!!
I’m sure you’ve also felt your flip flops sticking to the crosswalk!
Even though this doesn’t happen too often at such extremes, it’s best you practise
hopping just in case you find yourself with the protection of only one shoe!
8.
Crowding into Canals
When things just get too hot to cope, you’re left with little choice but to jump into the
nearest body of water that you can- but it’s unlikely you’ll be the only one with this
idea.
This image, from the Lahore canal in Pakistan, says it all.
Normally a focal point of celebration in the city, hosting light parades for a number of
different occasions, every year when the full force of summer hits, thousands upon thousands
of people take to the water.
It’s an effective way for adults and children alike to cool down, if you can find room to
move, that is!
And you're not worried about germs.
And now for number 7, but first do you live somewhere hot?
Let us know how you get through it in the comments below and be sure to subscribe before
you leave!!
7.
Sleeping in a Freezer
This next one is absolutely something you must not try at home!
We’ve all been there, sweltering at night and unable to sleep, and willing to do virtually
anything to get some respite.
It turns out, when this happens, quite a few people resort to risky methods to cool off-
including sitting inside their fridges or freezers!
It may initially seem like a good way to cool down, but there are some pretty major risks
involved in doing this.
The appliances simply aren’t designed to have people inside them, so they are not built
with safety in mind.
It’s not a typical hang out place!!
Deep freezers are particularly dangerous because, while you can fit inside and close the lid,
there isn’t a handle or way to open it again from the inside.
This is what a 23-year-old from Houston, Texas, found in 2016 when he propped the lid open
with two broom handles before dozing off.
His air con unit had broken, and he was desperate.
At some point during the night the door closed, and he was found frozen solid a few days later.
That’s how some people just disappear!
6.
Baking Cookies In Your Car
You might have heard stories of people frying eggs on sidewalks in hot temperatures, especially
in Southern California and Nevada, but if the thermometers really begin to rise, you
can turn the windshield in you car into an oven!
Rather than becoming frustrating like an Easy Bake oven, if the sun is shining bright enough
you could quite easily bake a tray of cookies in a couple of hours!
Fresh for when you get off work!!
A news team in Arizona tried this out in 2015 during a heatwave.
As temperatures soared to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the last thing anyone probably wanted to do
was eat warm chocolate cookies, but still they persevered.
They left a car in direct sunlight, and placed a tray, with 11 lumps of cookie mix, on the
front dashboard.
Within 2 and a half hours they were fully cooked, and the experiment was a success.
One mistake they made, though, was leaving their GoPro camera inside the car to film
the event.
It got so hot that it kept failing, and they weren’t able to record as much as they had
intended to.
Whoops!!
5.
Architecture
In Jaipur, India, temperatures can reach as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Such extremes can obviously make life very difficult for people, so architects have turned
to age old design techniques to keep things more comfortable.
The Pearl Academy of Fashion, for example, has been built with a perforated screen on
the exterior that acts as a thermal buffer between the building and the outside environment.
Known as a Jaali, it filters the air and light, so it’s much cooler inside.
Another technique is known as a Stepwell.
It’s a pond that is dug into the ground in buildings and full of water.
When this water evaporates it cools the air around it, and acts as a natural air conditioner.
The Chand Baori stepwell is a stunning historical example of this technique, but it’s being
used again in more modern designs- such as the one that’s in the Pearl Academy of Fashion.
4.
Keeping the Dog Cool
It’s not just people that get hot in high temperatures- pets do too, and it’s vital
to ensure they’re taken care of!!
There are sensible measures, such as taking them for their walks in the cooler mornings
or evenings, ensuring they have plenty of water, protecting their feet from hot surfaces,
not leaving them in cars, and allowing them to dig if they are outside- but some ideas
are way more fun.
Take this dog, for example, who’s managed to find himself a bed of ice to relax in,
or this one whose owners have made him an ice cake full of treats.
Our favourite, though, has to be this little dog who has been given his very own pool to
relax in, while being in the shade of an umbrella that’s been put up to block out the sunlight.
Ahhh it really is a dog’s life….
3.
Ice Cream Sandwich
One of the first things people tend to reach for during hot weather is an ice cream.
They’re so tasty and cold that they seem the perfect thing in these kinds of conditions,
but this might make you think twice next time.
A woman in Australia noticed an ice cream sandwich that had been half eaten and left
by the roadside.
Sadly there’s nothing surprising about litter, but it is surprising someone didn’t eat
the whole thing.
The thing was that this particular ice cream sandwich had been beside the road for 4 days
during a hot spell before this picture was taken.
Not only does this ice cream seem immune to melting, but it hasn’t attracted any insects
either, which has raised a lot of concerns about the ingredients.
What are you eating??
Plastic??
Is it even food??
A similar thing was noticed in 2014 with a similar product sold at Walmart, but apparently
this happens because of the ways in which these ice creams are made.
They contain a lot of air and fats, along with stabilisers, and these all combine to
reinforce its structure.
This means it will take a long time before it begins to melt, and gives you plenty of
time to eat the whole thing without it dripping all over your hands.
Tasty, sure.
Will it kill you slowly over time?
Maybe.
2.
Crazy Air Con
Nowadays if you live in a hot country it’s pretty much a prerequisite to have air conditioning.
Sometimes, though, one air-con unit just isn’t enough, and this leads to some pretty insane
setups all in the name of beating the sun’s rays.
This picture is from a building at Ann Siang Hill Park in Singapore and, by my count, it
has a total of 19 externally mounted units on its back wall alone.
So extreme is this setup, that they’ve had to build a frame to hold the weight, and attach
ladders so they can all be effectively maintained.
Seeing different apartment blocks, and focussing on the air con units, it becomes clear how
prolific the devices are around the world.
At first they may seem like a blight on the architecture, but there’s something hypnotic
about seeing these carefully positioned machines on the buildings to keep the insides cool.
The presence of the units on the exterior of buildings also provides a secondary function,
as this image from China shows.
Can you spot anything unusual in this image?
If we look closer you can see there’s someone hanging off one of them.
Apparently having been visiting his lover, this man had no choice but to hide outside
the window when her husband came home.
Is it me or does it look quite cold out there!
1.
Cooking a Meal on the Sidewalk
We’ve seen people baking cookies in the heat, but would it be possible to cook an
entire meal?
The answer is, as long as it’s hot enough and you have the right supplies, then definitely
yes.
In 2014, the World Wildlife Fund set up an event in Asunción, the capital city of Paraguay.
They wanted to draw attention to the effects of global warming, and so they enlisted the
help of the famed chef, Rodolfo Angenscheidt.
His challenge was to cook a meal for guests on the asphalt, which had been painted with
white lines to resemble a cooker.
Known as the ‘Global Warming Menu’, he cooked eggs and meat in the pans and, with
the expertise you’d expect from an experienced chef, he created a tasty treat for those that
were invited.
This is, of course, an extreme way of highlighting global warming, because the streets of Asunción
have always reached high temperatures during the summer months.
It just goes to show, though, that during heatwaves if you use a little bit of ingenuity,
you can use your surroundings to your benefit.
Just try not to die of heat stroke!!
Thanks for watching!!
Any tough experiences in the heat?
Let us know in the comments below!
Be sure to subscribe and see you next time!!