Regardless of the extreme heat, the job has not changed for a union construction crew working in Middletown during the hottest part of Wednesday.

They are prepping a stretch of Wickham Avenue for a new sidewalk.

"A hot day. A lot of hand-digging. Searching for services. [That's] about it," construction worker Vinny Deluise said. "Definitely a lot hotter when you're around the machines. You got the exhaust blowing on you all day long. It's a lot of hard work."

They have not added extra breaks into their schedule because they cannot fall behind the project schedule, which involves various contractors doing certain work at certain times.

"Always gotta get the job done," DeLuise said. "The only thing that really stops us is rain, so we hope for a rain day every now and then. If not, we're working."

The Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration has reported that outdoor workers with heavy workloads are more at risk of heat-related injury or death than are other professionals.