By Hannah Critchfield | Tampa Bay Times and Juan Carlos Chavez | Tampa Bay Times
It felt like 100 degrees on the job site by late afternoon.
"Truly unbearable," was how Jonathan Baudilio Ramirez Salazar described Florida's weather when he spoke to his wife on the phone the night before.
He'd worked one day in the thick July heat as a temporary laborer on a Fort Myers landscaping crew for TruScapes Industries Inc.
"Don't go to work tomorrow," his wife told him.
"My love, I didn't come here to rest," the 31-year-old said from his hotel. "I came here to work -- I need to get used to it."
Ramirez was far from home, a one-bedroom his family of five shared in Guatemala. He missed the chilly breeze descending each evening in Santa Cruz Naranjo.
But in Guatemala, he made about $150 a month. For years, he'd dreamed of working in the U.S. to save for a bigger home and his children's studies. In 2022, he came to Florida.
On Ramirez's second day with TruScapes, he worked outside an apartment complex. The weather reached 89 degrees by midmorning.
As the shift wore on, coworkers noticed Ramirez seemed unwell. He skipped lunch but kept working -- until he couldn't any longer.
His coworkers discovered him on his knees in a wooded area behind the complex around 4:40 p.m. He appeared to be seizing. His skin was hot. His heartbeat faint. Vomit lodged in his throat.
When paramedics arrived, his body temperature was above 110 degrees.
Ramirez died of heatstroke, according to medical examiner records. From his exposure on the job.
Dehydrated, nauseous, sunburned Floridians flood emergency rooms when temperatures rise
Workplace regulators, however, didn't investigate what happened. That's because TruScapes didn't tell them he'd died.
Florida banned local governments from providing increased oversight for workers exposed to high temperatures earlier this year, saying businesses and federal regulators alone could keep laborers safe.
But the Tampa Bay Times found far more workers have died from heat across the state than authorities even know.
The missing deaths bring recorded heat fatalities in Florida to at least 37 over the past decade -- double the number federal regulators had tallied during the same period.
Employers are supposed to notify the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which oversees worker safety, about employee deaths within hours. OSHA has fined six businesses in the state after discovering they didn't follow the rule when workers died from heat.
The Times identified 19 additional heat-related deaths kept from the agency.
Taken together, the Times found that Florida companies have failed to report the vast majority of heat fatalities as required.
To examine heat's toll, the Times reviewed thousands of pages of medical examiner records listing heat as a cause of death from 2013 through 2023. Reporters reviewed law enforcement records and interviewed family members, employers, former federal inspectors and witnesses of job-related deaths to piece together the circumstances behind the uncounted cases.
Workers died after hot days spent roofing houses, packing boxes and harvesting fruit. Many were young. They'd just started jobs, unaccustomed to Florida's stifling heat and humidity.
It was the work they could get after being released from prison. After not finishing high school. After leaving families abroad to build a different life for the next generation.
The vast majority were people of color. At least half were immigrants.
A Mexican roofer who came to the U.S. on a temporary visa and collapsed while working on a home in Delray Beach. A Merritt Island landscaper who arrived from Colombia two months before and died after less than an hour in the emergency room. A Guatemalan construction worker who crumpled to the ground in Coral Gables on his way to get water.
Several were undocumented, their own supervisors unaware of their names.
2023 set record for US heat deaths, killing in areas that used to handle the heat -- including Florida, AP analysis finds
Businesses told the Times they didn't report deaths for several reasons.
Some said they believed employees died of preexisting medical conditions. Others said workers' compensation insurance told them the deaths weren't work-related. One said the laborer who died technically wasn't an employee.
Three worker safety experts said they were alarmed by the Times' findings.
"We know that there is severe underreporting of work-related injuries and illnesses, as well as fatalities," said Debbie Berkowitz, former chief of staff and senior policy adviser for OSHA during the Obama administration.
Experts also said that companies employing undocumented workers might be less willing to report fatalities for fear it would draw attention to their operations. One of every five deaths that regulators knew nothing about was an undocumented laborer, the Times found.
Extreme heat is more deadly than any other natural disaster plaguing the U.S., killing more people annually than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined, according to the National Weather Service. Climate change is only increasing the threat.
Florida is one of the nation's hottest states, with unforgiving humidity that can make it harder for the body to cool down. It's devoid of worker heat protections -- despite requiring safeguards like mandated breaks and access to water for high school athletes.
Florida's ban on local governments adopting heat regulations drew national attention and criticism with nearly 90 environmental, faith-based and labor groups writing to Gov. Ron DeSantis asking him to veto the legislation before he signed it.
Proponents of the bill, which included lobbying groups for the construction and agriculture industries, promised the additional oversight was unnecessary.
"I don't think we need a nanny government standing over every person who might get too hot today," said then-Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, while speaking in support of the legislation during a February hearing. "It's over-regulating."
Like Florida, OSHA lacks specific heat protections for workers. But in some circumstances, it can penalize employers who fail to keep laborers safe from dangerous heat -- particularly when fatalities occur.
The agency considers heat-related illness preventable and expects companies to keep workers safe by providing water, shade, opportunities for rest and time to ease into strenuous activities in new climates.
OSHA did not respond to questions about why the agency didn't know about the deaths identified by the Times.
In a statement, an OSHA spokesperson said the agency has prioritized conducting heat-related inspections and proposed a rule to protect workers because these types of ailments are often missed by employers and medical professionals.
"OSHA is deeply committed to preventing workplace tragedies and recognizes that there are workplace deaths involving high-heat environments that occur where it may not be clear if the event is in fact work-related, especially involving underlying medical conditions," the statement said. "We will continue to use all our resources, including strong enforcement to target high-hazard worksites and industries."
Sometimes when companies don't report deaths, OSHA still learns about them from investigating police agencies or medical examiners. But only employers are required to report them.
When deaths go undetected, experts say, agency officials can't investigate whether the company bore responsibility. There are no fines or records of wrongdoing.
"The goal is to prevent the next death -- and the only way to do that is to figure out what happened," Berkowitz said.
For Ramirez, the agency never had the chance to determine what transpired at his landscaping site.
The president of TruScapes, Llomell Llorca, said in an email that the company believed Ramirez died from a preexisting medical issue and the business's insurance carrier did not relay that he died from heatstroke. Llorca said that for nearly two decades, TruScapes has provided workers with water, ice and coolers.
"We steadfastly strive to enhance our workplace safety protocol for all of our team members," he wrote.
Last year, OSHA inspectors were called to a TruScapes worksite to investigate another death and found multiple hazards.
A 36-year-old woman had drowned after she was pinned underwater by a riding mower while landscaping around a pond in Palmetto, according to federal records and medical examiner documents.
During the investigation, inspectors found TruScapes lacked heat safety measures for laborers. Workers were required to buy their own water, and the company didn't have a plan to ensure workers adjusted to Florida's weather.
Inspectors noted that TruScapes employees could have faced dehydration, heat stress -- even death.
The company was fined about $160,000 for safety violations, including $10,000 for exposing employees to heat illness. Llorca said TruScapes disagreed with OSHA's findings that workers faced heat hazards. But the company ultimately agreed to pay the fines.
The penalty, records show, was kept lower because the company had no documented citations related to heat.
By that time, Ramirez had been dead for almost a year.
Companies are supposed to report work-related fatalities to OSHA within eight hours. That prompts the agency to investigate and determine whether the employer holds blame.
The 19 deaths identified by the Times that are missing from OSHA's tally included day laborers, roofers, construction workers and landscapers. Many died after working for lawn care companies on private homes, some just hundreds of feet from air conditioning and running water.
All were men, leaving behind wives and children in Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti and Florida. Most weren't even 40.
The youngest was 20. The oldest 70.
At least four died during their first week on the job. Three died on their very first day.
Their internal body temperatures averaged over 106 degrees. The hottest day reached a heat index of over 109. The average was over 100.
Nearly all of the deaths happened between June and August.
Workers collapsed in Tampa Bay, in the outskirts of the Everglades, in the suburbs outside Disney World and in the state's westernmost county bordering Alabama.
Three died in Miami-Dade County, the only county in Florida to have considered -- but not passed -- local heat protections for laborers.
Carlos Hernandez was starting to rebuild his life after spending five years in prison when he collapsed and suffered multiple seizures in 2014. The 33-year-old had been working with a landscaping company outside a Hialeah Gardens charter school on a 91-degree day.
José Joaquin Gómez Lucas was working as an undocumented laborer while living with six other workers in a duplex when he had a seizure in 2016. The 39-year-old had been landscaping in the backyard of a Miami home when it was roughly 90 degrees.
Luis Federico Dell Campollo was working on a construction crew far from his wife in Guatemala when he crumpled to the ground last year. The 47-year-old was remodeling a multi-million-dollar home in Coral Gables on a 95-degree day. The heat index was above 104 -- minutes before his collapse.
OSHA generally advises employers to use greater caution when laborers are working with a heat index above 80. When heat-index temperatures reach the mid 100s, experts say, heat exhaustion becomes likely.
Heat ravages the body, waging a multi-front attack on its systems. It can cause the pulse to quicken and muscles to cramp. Dizziness sets in. The rise in body temperature leads to vomiting and seizures. Toxins enter the bloodstream. Organs shut down. Finally, the heart stops.
When heat takes hold, it causes confusion, making it difficult for workers to recognize what's happening. Accidents like falls become more likely amid the cognitive fog.
How quickly the effects begin depends on many factors, including a person's age and health history. Existing medical conditions and some commonly prescribed medications can exacerbate the effects of heat.
Fatalities tied to preexisting conditions also can be classified as work-related if exposure at an employee's job significantly aggravated the existing ailment or injury.
"If you're working on a hot day and an employee collapses and dies, there's not any question in anybody's mind that heat was involved," Berkowitz said. "If you weren't at work that day, you'd be alive."
Twelve of the heat deaths the Times identified also had additional causes listed, including heart disease, obesity and chronic alcohol or substance use.
Almost all of the uncounted deaths involved outdoor workers. But indoor work in Florida without air conditioning can also be dangerous.
Thomas Kelly spent more than 30 years at H&H Products Co., a beverage manufacturer in Orlando. The company looked out for him, according to his siblings. When his mother died, company management bought him a suit for her funeral.
Kelly took pride in his work. At a young age, doctors diagnosed him with limited intellectual abilities, family members said. He entered a trade academy instead of high school and found fulfillment in a job well done.
"He was very specific in his habits," his sister Pat Chatfield said. "He loved his job because he was productive."
But Chatfield said he still needed a nudge to take care of himself.
When Kelly entered his 60s, he often felt faint in the unair-conditioned part of the bottling factory, according to the company's president. Several times, the company called 911, and he was taken to the hospital. He was offered breaks, his siblings believed, but he was stubborn and wouldn't take them.
In June 2020, Kelly collapsed in the factory again.
H&H Products called 911, but Kelly regained consciousness and left. The company instead sent first responders to his house, where they found him naked and in an altered mental state.
His body temperature was 109 when he reached the emergency room.
Kelly languished in the hospital for 20 days before succumbing to pneumonia and respiratory failure, with heatstroke as a contributing cause. He was 70.
"Tom was more than an employee, he was family," coworkers at H&H Products wrote in his obituary.
Morris Hartley Jr., the company's president, told the Times that the factory uses exhaust and area fans to cool the work area. He said management encourages employees to rest and stay hydrated, especially in the summertime.
Hartley said that he didn't report Kelly's death to OSHA because H&H Products believed it was related to a medical condition, and workers' compensation insurance said it wasn't tied to his job. He added that Kelly left the factory on his own accord. H&H Products, he said, never learned his official cause of death.
OSHA didn't either.
DeSantis banned heat protections for Florida's outdoor workers. Now, the Biden administration may step in
Some OSHA rules prevent agency officials from finding out about fatalities -- or from penalizing employers when they do.
Companies are only required to report deaths that occur within 30 days of an employee becoming sick or hurt. Experts say for heat cases, where workers can die weeks after exposure, the rule is limiting.
Two deaths that the Times found happened outside the window: A 29-year-old farmworker harvesting watermelons in June 2022 and a 22-year-old working on a home in Altamonte Springs in June 2016. Both died after spending more than a month in the hospital.
Companies also are required to report inpatient hospitalizations to OSHA within 24 hours of a job-related injury, but there's no evidence either company did, according to agency records.
OSHA must issue citations within six months of violations occurring, regardless of when officials learn of them. Otherwise, the agency is barred from doing so.
Labor experts say that may discourage employers from reporting injuries and deaths.
Because of the rule, the agency was hamstrung while investigating TruScapes.
Last July, an inspector noticed something curious in the company's records while probing the drowning death. On TruScapes' injury log, a fatality was listed that had not been reported to OSHA.
Ramirez.
He was one of three company employees who died within a decade.
TruScapes recorded his death as "non-work related," inspection records show. The company's president told investigators he died of a seizure.
But OSHA officials found that the medical examiner's report told a different story. That Ramirez actually died of heatstroke.
"For them, it's just, 'He's dead, let's forget about it,'" his wife Maria Corado Alvizures said about the company. "They didn't think about the wife left without her life partner, the person she trusted most, or the children left without their father."
Llorca, TruScapes' president, said the interview with OSHA was how he learned Ramirez's death was heat-related. He called it a "devastating revelation" that prompted the company to organize an all-staff safety meeting, distribute a memo on heat hazard prevention and introduce new safeguards related to heat illness and mower operation safety.
But by the time OSHA discovered Ramirez's death, almost a year had passed.
So the agency did nothing.
The missing deaths underscore that not all workers face the same threats: Two-thirds of those who died were people of color.
Immigrants are disproportionately vulnerable to workplace hazards. Undocumented people, who navigate job markets that are often underground and informal, are even more at risk.
Their loved ones may not know the names of the companies or people they work for. Bosses may change by the day, as workers move from company to company. Records of employment may be nonexistent or paltry at best.
Latino workers have the highest fatality rate among laborers in the U.S. -- nearly 25% higher than the national rate overall. Deaths of Latino employees jumped in 2022, the year Department of Labor data is most recently available. The fatality rate among Black workers also exceeded the overall rate for workers that year.
Ten of the 19 deaths identified by the Times were Latino workers. Four were Black.
Paramedics found Alfonso Rodriguez Luna lying outside a mansion in summer 2020.
His colleague was performing CPR when they arrived, but he didn't know the laborer's name.
The colleague worked for a landscaping company called Greenscape Inc. He'd picked up Rodriguez that morning in Belle Glade, the August sun's rays already punishing, according to police records.
Rodriguez was from Nayarit, Mexico, where he had a wife and two kids. An undocumented worker, he was used to being anonymous while he hauled sugar cane or laid sod on manicured lawns, recruited by employers who asked few questions and paid at the end of a day's work.
The colleague and Rodriguez drove from Belle Glade to the town of Southwest Ranches, where they began work. By midday, temperatures were in the 90s. Rodriguez grew pale as he toiled outside the $2 million home. His coworker told him to rest under a tree.
His breathing became labored. His consciousness slipped away. By the time paramedics arrived, his body temperature was 108.
Rodriguez, 49, died shortly after reaching the emergency room.
Three days passed before his family found out. He was eventually identified by his brother-in-law, who showed up at the medical examiner's office looking for him, police records show.
Rodriguez had spent much of the last two decades away from home, primarily harvesting tobacco in North Carolina, according to his wife Maria del Rocio Ramos Flores. He'd only been working in Florida for a few days.
"He was always looking out for us," Ramos said.
OSHA has no record that Greenscape reported his death. The company's president William Poole declined to comment.
Like Rodriguez, at least two other workers whose deaths went unreported were immigrants with coworkers or supervisors who didn't know, or declined to provide, their names.
They were listed as John Doe and unidentified males in police reports. Officers waited for documentation and IDs that never came.
Florida companies may be less likely to report deaths to regulators if they know or suspect workers are undocumented, experts say. At least four of the uncounted laborers lacked legal status in the U.S., the Times found.
Employers may fear repercussions for hiring people who are undocumented, they said. Or -- with the decedent's family hundreds of miles away and coworkers who are also vulnerable -- they may know they're less likely to get caught if they skirt regulations.
When a coworker found 35-year-old Frantz Estimable unresponsive on the concrete floor of a Palm Beach County construction site in June 2022, his family didn't know where to turn.
A native of Haiti, Estimable had flown to Brazil and traversed through South and Central America to cross into the U.S. a few months before.
Without papers, he picked up construction jobs where he could. He was in a "poorly ventilated" and incredibly "hot work space" when he collapsed, according to medical examiner records. He died in hospice five days later.
Heat exposure was his sole cause of death.
His father, Nondy Estimable, said he didn't know who his son was working for that day. The medical examiner records don't identify his employer either. And police said they have no record of his case.
The circumstances of Estimable's death remained invisible to his family -- and to OSHA.
In other cases, companies denied responsibility for the laborers entirely, the Times found.
In February 2021, Claudio Jimenez-Sanchez joined a crew from Carlton Roofing LLC, to work on a home in Delray Beach.
The owner of the company, Carlton Cole, stopped by the worksite and noticed Jimenez-Sanchez on the roof, according to a police report. Cole had never seen him before, he later told police. Cole left, according to police, and Jimenez-Sanchez stayed.
Jimenez-Sanchez, 37, had arrived from North Carolina less than two weeks earlier. He'd overstayed a temporary agricultural visa, according to family members.
As an undocumented person, opportunities with good pay were scarce. His friend had brought him along to the worksite. It was his first day.
Even though it was winter, the temperature reached 84 degrees that morning. The humidity made it feel closer to 90.
The crew was about to break for lunch when Jimenez-Sanchez abruptly sat on the scalloped roof. Appearing confused, he slumped over, a faraway look on his face.
He didn't respond when a coworker asked if he was OK. First responders had to carry him down. He went into cardiac arrest.
When Jimenez-Sanchez reached the hospital, his core body temperature was 107 degrees. He died within an hour of sepsis with heatstroke from working outside as the contributing cause, a medical examiner determined.
Police later called Cole back to the worksite. He said he'd never seen Jimenez-Sanchez until earlier that day. He said he didn't work for him. He denied he was an employee.
OSHA has no record that Carlton Roofing reported his death. The agency requires people with day-to-day supervisory roles to do so, even if their workers are temporary. Cole did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Law enforcement ultimately identified Jimenez-Sanchez through his Mexican ID card.
To federal officials, he remained a temporary worker who disappeared.
When OSHA inspectors investigate Florida worksites after heat-related deaths, more often than not, they find steps employers could take to make their workers safer.
Two years ago, OSHA launched a national heat emphasis program, designed to reduce illnesses and fatalities in high-risk industries through increased inspections.
The move came after the agency determined it wasn't paying enough attention to heat threats. Just 1% of all federal inspections over the previous five years were heat-related inquiries, and the vast majority had been reactive -- triggered by a complaint, accident or death.
Since its launch, OSHA has conducted more than 450 heat inspections in Florida, federal data show. Roughly a fifth revealed violations.
But even with the program, inspections remain infrequent compared to the number of businesses in the state. OSHA may be one of the more recognizable agencies in the federal government, but its inspection arm is tiny. Roughly 64 inspectors oversee hundreds of thousands of workplaces in Florida alone, federal records show. And heat deaths, already, can be hard to catch.
OSHA has said its tally of heat-related fatalities is an undercount.
Experts say medical examiners may misclassify heat deaths, crediting the cause of the fatalities to other afflictions, like cardiac arrest, which can occur as the body shuts down from heat illness. OSHA's toll also doesn't account for long-term effects of chronic heat exposure, which has been linked to a wide array of potentially deadly conditions in workers, including kidney disease.
The agency acknowledges that companies may fail to report heat deaths and injuries, fearing "potential increases in workers' compensation costs or impacts on the employer's reputation." But OSHA has said the extent of the underreporting is unknown.
If OSHA wanted to examine the magnitude of the problem, there was a way. The Times helped fill the void within months by asking every medical examiner's office in Florida for heat death records.
Across the state, OSHA has recorded 18 heat-related deaths over the last decade, less than half of the actual total.
Inspectors also examined at least seven other fatalities as possibly heat-related that medical examiners determined were solely caused by other factors. (Even in those cases, OSHA may levy fines against companies if the agency discovers workers weren't adequately protected.)
Not all of the involved businesses received citations. But inspectors found that more than three-quarters had failed to safeguard workers from heat.
Despite lacking heat-specific protections, the agency still expects employers to provide a safe work environment.
Most laborers who died worked for companies that did not offer heat training or scheduled breaks.
One farm manager told inspectors that he monitored the weather for rain, because tomatoes can't be harvested during storms, but did not track heat for workers. OSHA found no evidence that a 43-year-old who died of heatstroke while working for the company had received any education on heat illness prevention.
Four companies had past violations for worker safety. Nearly half of the victims were farmworkers.
In its statement, OSHA said it plans to prioritize inspections of agricultural companies that employ temporary farmworkers who are at high risk of heat exposure and may have unique vulnerabilities like language barriers.
A third of the deaths OSHA investigated weren't reported within the required timeframe by companies.
Employers gave federal officials a range of excuses. Their workers' compensation insurance company -- which financially benefits when deaths aren't work-related -- told them not to report the fatalities. They figured deaths were caused by medical issues, not work. They claimed they had no employees, only day laborers. They pointed to the worker's history of substance use.
OSHA cited them all.
Coupled with the 19 deaths identified by the Times, Florida companies did not report two-thirds of heat fatalities in the state.
The fines for failing to disclose deaths, or to protect workers from heat, were meager, averaging about $6,500 per company.
Most often, OSHA caught unreported deaths because a medical examiner picked up the phone.
OSHA has no formal agreements with local agencies in Florida to report work-related fatalities, according to an OSHA spokesperson. The agency has longstanding relationships with medical examiners, fire departments and law enforcement agencies, which commonly report deaths and serious injuries, the spokesperson said.
Ann Rosenthal, a former attorney for OSHA, said agreements "would definitely help" the agency find and investigate more deaths.
The case of Sean Conroy shows how.
Conroy had been out of treatment for alcohol use for a week when he started to feel sick while landscaping a yard in Sarasota County in August 2018.
His boss at Olin Landscaping, Shane Fogarty, later told OSHA he knew Conroy struggled with drinking. He figured he was hungover.
Fogarty had hired the 48-year-old through a Craigslist post. "Must be able to handle the hot Florida sun," the advertisement had said.
It was Conroy's third day on the job. Fogarty gave him Gatorade, water and food and had him rest in the company's air-conditioned truck. More than an hour passed. Conroy seemed better and returned to work at another nearby house.
The heat index roiled to just over 103 degrees.
Conroy's coworkers found him seizing on the ground about two hours later. At the hospital, his temperature was 107 degrees. He died two days later.
OSHA almost didn't know about any of it.
Fogarty told inspectors he didn't have any employees. He hired informally, picking up day laborers at gas stations and recruiting Conroy through an online ad.
He said he didn't give workers scheduled breaks but told them they could rest if they needed to. Conroy was a Florida native, Fogarty said, so he was used to the heat.
He repeatedly told federal officials about Conroy's history of alcoholism.
He said he didn't know about OSHA's reporting requirements, so he didn't notify the agency.
Instead, a local medical examiner reported Conroy's death 15 days later.
Fogarty did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Olin Landscaping was fined just over $2,800 for failing to alert regulators and about $13,000 for not protecting workers from heat hazards.
Conroy had no alcohol in his system, according to his medical examiner's report.
His drinking history made him more vulnerable to heat illness, the medical examiner determined, and listed it as a contributor to his death.
Times data editor Langston Taylor contributed to this report.
After a fatal bus crash killed eight migrant farmworkers and injured dozens more, the Tampa Bay Times dove deeper into the dangerous working conditions migrant laborers face across Florida.
One clear threat was the Sunshine State's stifling heat. Florida passed a law banning local governments from implementing heat protections for workers, and the Times wanted to quantify how deadly heat and humidity can be for vulnerable laborers.
The Times first examined data on heat deaths kept by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which tracks work-related fatalities across the nation. The Times compiled Florida fatalities by combing through three different agency datasets. Reporters also sent records requests to every medical examiner's office in Florida seeking case files on heat-related deaths from 2013 through 2023.
It soon became clear that workers were dying from heat exposure on the job that OSHA didn't know about. The agency considers deaths to be work-related if exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the condition. Deaths must also be considered work-related if workplace exposure significantly aggravated a preexisting illness or injury.
The Times only counted deaths where heat was listed as a cause or contributing cause of death.
Ultimately, reporters reviewed thousands of pages of medical examiner records and found 19 workers who died after heat exposures on the job that weren't included in OSHA's tally. They used police reports, emergency response documents and medical records to learn more about the circumstances of their deaths.
The Times was able to identify 10 of the 19 employers involved. The remaining cases clearly occurred at work, but the company that the laborer worked for was not listed in documents, and friends and family members couldn't provide additional details.
Reporters conducted dozens of interviews, many in Spanish, to understand the workers' lives and why they were working in Florida.
To determine weather conditions on worksites, reporters used historical data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Reporters used the agency's heat index calculator to determine each heat index, which combines air temperature and humidity to measure how the weather feels to the human body. It is a metric that OSHA recommends employers use to assess heat hazards under its proposed heat standard.
The Times reviewed its findings with three former OSHA leaders.