This is the double nightmare scenario I had feared, happening even earlier in the year than I had expected.
The heat waves were already making it difficult to conduct activities more safely outdoors. People without air conditioning who need to go to cooling centers lose the option of isolating and avoiding indoor spaces with other households. It’s so hot, I feared more people will socialize (and do things like get haircuts) indoors.
The fires and smoke make things so much worse. You can’t shelter in place if you have to evacuate. You can’t take neighborhood walks and eat outside if you can’t breathe the outside air (purple air shows particulate concentrations of 200+ and even 300+ in much of the Bay Area where 100+ is considered unhealthy). The smoke blew in like a quick-moving fog last night; I’ve never seen anything like it here. I happened to be awake during the lightning storm a few nights ago and it was so ominous and bizarre, with thick, low clouds obscuring the sky and lit up by the flashes of lightning.
Someone in my area asked on Nextdoor, if it’s 100 degrees by day and they don’t have AC and the air outside is hazardous, how can they cool off at night? What alternative do they have to opening the windows?
Even in non-pandemic years, cases of heart and lung problems increase during the fire season, and the smoke can’t be a good for Covid at-risk groups.
It is a bad, bad situation.
The heat waves were already making it difficult to conduct activities more safely outdoors. People without air conditioning who need to go to cooling centers lose the option of isolating and avoiding indoor spaces with other households. It’s so hot, I feared more people will socialize (and do things like get haircuts) indoors.
The fires and smoke make things so much worse. You can’t shelter in place if you have to evacuate. You can’t take neighborhood walks and eat outside if you can’t breathe the outside air (purple air shows particulate concentrations of 200+ and even 300+ in much of the Bay Area where 100+ is considered unhealthy). The smoke blew in like a quick-moving fog last night; I’ve never seen anything like it here. I happened to be awake during the lightning storm a few nights ago and it was so ominous and bizarre, with thick, low clouds obscuring the sky and lit up by the flashes of lightning.
Someone in my area asked on Nextdoor, if it’s 100 degrees by day and they don’t have AC and the air outside is hazardous, how can they cool off at night? What alternative do they have to opening the windows?
Even in non-pandemic years, cases of heart and lung problems increase during the fire season, and the smoke can’t be a good for Covid at-risk groups.
It is a bad, bad situation.