Pandemic: Life on the ground

[Jersey Girl]

There are a couple of forest fires some 20 miles east of where I live. The wind is from the west so many days have seen little smoke. A few days visibility dropped to a mile or so. That may have included some smoke from Oregon. A couple of years ago smoke from large British Columbia fires settled in my area to the point visibility dropped to below 100 yards at times. We set up a box fan inside the house with air filter attached. That helped some. I have extra air filters and a couple of fans in case the smoke gets bad again. Still I am hoping smoke will never do that again.

Jersey Girl , Thankyou for your observations. You got my curiosity going about air quality index and I found a website showing current local measurements. Interest information to follow. It was about 60 a few days ago but smoke started increasing. Number went over 220 last night and this morning. It is 174 now with the weather person forecasting improvement tomorrow and the next few days. After that it could go up again. I was advised it was just last summer when it got much worse than this. I am obviously trying to distance myself from that memory of reddish yellow air.
.......

My the site has world map. I can see where the smoke is and is not. This appears likely to be smoke from California fires. I notice nothing but green spots and low numbers for Colorado. Must be some help from water you mentioned. The last substantial water we got was white and had to be shoveled off of streets and sidewalks. (early March)

Holy cats, 220? That's insane. I know when the air quality is bad by how I react to it. I just check it on my phone or online to confirm. Wood smoke tops the list of anything else I'm allergic to, no contest. Perhaps 15 years ago, when the summers seemed to get hotter and dryer, we invested in a swamp cooler. That thing saves my life and otherwise I throw everything at the allergic reaction that I have available to me.

I live in a forest. Each summer in June, the trees dump tons of pollen into the air. You can see it when the wind blows, billowing out of the trees. Am I allergic to that? Nope! But the wood smoke, the haze from the fires? That stuff wants to kill me.

Our AQI is at 49--Good--today. Go figure. It won't last long. I am so sorry for the people in states where the fires are burning. We've been through a wildfire ourselves and I know what it's like. I know that my griping about having to put things off like outside work is nothing compared to what they are dealing with but I tell you, after this past year and a half of having to stop/start, I am really tired of having to change plans.

One thing you can do...and this isn't a cure. If you don't live in a place with a dry climate that would lend itself to a swamp cooler, and IF you have a basement. Button up the house overnight, when you wake up in the morning, put your heating system on "fan" only, and it will circulate cooler air up from your basement...cools the house down a bit without bringing in the unwanted particulates from the outside air.

If you don't have a basement, just do it anyway. At least you'll have a feeling that there is air circulating in your home.

[Res Ipsa]

We topped out at about 170 yesterday. 220 sounds miserable. But the winds have shifted and we're in the 20's now. It's like a breath of fresh air.

[huckelberry]

We topped out at about 170 yesterday. 220 sounds miserable. But the winds have shifted and we're in the 20's now. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Res Ipsa, I believe I remember you are located west side of Cascades. Your breath of fresh air is what is hopefully to reach us on the other side of the mountains in the next few days.

I do not know the number reached last year but the air was much much worse than the 220 number. I have only seen it that bad one time in my life and that was enough. I have friends who use to live in Wenatchee. There were several summers with fire just out of town to the west. All the smoke was going directly into town. They remember being unable to see across the street at times. The fire was stopped from getting into town.

I admit to having some fire worries, I do not remember a spring summer this dry.

[huckelberry]

Jersey Girl, we have no basement. I did set up box fan with air filter last night. It was a help.

Sorry to hear your allergies make the smoke worse for you. It is bad enough for any of us.

[canpakes]

We topped out at about 170 yesterday. 220 sounds miserable. But the winds have shifted and we're in the 20's now. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Reno is one of my weather app locations as I sometimes have to be out that way. The image below is from last week. I can’t even imagine what 263 would be like.

[Res Ipsa]

We topped out at about 170 yesterday. 220 sounds miserable. But the winds have shifted and we're in the 20's now. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Res Ipsa, I believe I remember you are located west side of Cascades. Your breath of fresh air is what is hopefully to reach us on the other side of the mountains in the next few days.

I do not know the number reached last year but the air was much much worse than the 220 number. I have only seen it that bad one time in my life and that was enough. I have friends who use to live in Wenatchee. There were several summers with fire just out of town to the west. All the smoke was going directly into town. They remember being unable to see across the street at times. The fire was stopped from getting into town.

I admit to having some fire worries, I do not remember a spring summer this dry.

That's right, Huck. You're on the east side in central or southern Oregon? I checked the AQI for Bend. This week was brutal. I hope you get some wind that scours this crap out of your area. Better yet, I hope you get some rain without lightning to dampen that tinder box a little.

[Res Ipsa]

We topped out at about 170 yesterday. 220 sounds miserable. But the winds have shifted and we're in the 20's now. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Reno is one of my weather app locations as I sometimes have to be out that way. The image below is from last week. I can’t even imagine what 263 would be like.

Yikes. I've never been in smoke that bad, and I hope never to be.

[canpakes]

A Texas judge spelled out the dire COVID-19 situation for young people in the state on Friday, saying in an interview that, “in Dallas, we have zero ICU beds left for children.”

“That means if your child’s in a car wreck, if your child has a congenital heart defect ... and needs an ICU bed, or more likely if they have COVID and need an ICU bed, we don’t have one,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

“Your child will wait for another child to die,” he said bluntly.
Jenkins’ comments came amid his legal battle over masks with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) who last month signed an executive order declaring that local governments could not implement mask mandates.
…

“Your child will just not get on the ventilator, your child will be [airlifted to] wherever we can find them a bed,” Jenkins added. “But they won’t be getting one here unless one clears.”

The situation for adults does not appear to be much better.
Jenkins tweeted Friday that only 17 adult ICU beds were currently available in the county.

Texas currently has more than 11,200 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, more than it hard during last summer’s spike in cases.
Statewide, there are only 323 ICU beds available, as the number of people requiring hospital treatment surges, fueled by the spread of the more contagious delta variant and the plateauing of the vaccination rate. The vast majority of people now being hospitalized with COVID-19 have not received the vaccine.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think the big dummies who say things like, “Only x-y-z percentage of people who are infected by Covid die.”, don’t think about the massive medical costs associated with saving the lives of people who end up hospitalized:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

It would be cheaper, in fact, to just get the vaccine.

They also don’t realize most of those people, without modern medical intervention, would’ve passed away. They ALSO don’t realize that the lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and vaccines have reduced those numbers which would’ve been astronomical had nothing been done. “Herd immunity” might’ve been cheaper with regard to up front costs, but millions in the US would’ve died, perhaps tens of millions, and that would’ve been reflected globally with similar numbers. The long-term impact on our economies would’ve been a disaster.

- Doc

[huckelberry]

Res Ipsa, I believe I remember you are located west side of Cascades. Your breath of fresh air is what is hopefully to reach us on the other side of the mountains in the next few days.

I do not know the number reached last year but the air was much much worse than the 220 number. I have only seen it that bad one time in my life and that was enough. I have friends who use to live in Wenatchee. There were several summers with fire just out of town to the west. All the smoke was going directly into town. They remember being unable to see across the street at times. The fire was stopped from getting into town.

I admit to having some fire worries, I do not remember a spring summer this dry.

That's right, Huck. You're on the east side in central or southern Oregon? I checked the AQI for Bend. This week was brutal. I hope you get some wind that scours this crap out of your area. Better yet, I hope you get some rain without lightning to dampen that tinder box a little.

I do not have a reason to hide where I live, Walla Walla. I appreciate your hope for rain. A week ago we got clouds. In the afternoon some drops of water came out of the sky but they were too few and spread out. They evaporated as fast as they fell, all twenty five of them.