Can we have a check in thread for our west coast friends?
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The links include information on wildfires, how to prepare for emergencies (if you aren’t already in one), how to deal with the air quality, and how to prepare for extreme heat.
The www.ready.gov is a good site for information on emergencies, and it goes through how to prepare for an emergency, be safe during one, and how to be safe after one.
The Airnow/fires link also has links to smoke maps and other very useful information on wildfires
If anybody has any helpful links/information to share as well, please do.
What about your west coast Canadian friends?
Do we count?
All is well here in the interior of B.C.
We are having a late in season heat wave at the moment.
Awwwww I forgot Canada existed :((((((
Anybody who is dealing with the fires in any way is welcome to post here.
Another “apocalyptic” day here in the Bay Area…orange skies, no sunlight. Hope things change by the end of the day.
A friends cousin in Oregon is either burnt by now, last heard one block from burning in Mollala.
@Demosthenes Ya’ll be careful out there, sounds horrible.
Here is a video taken with the soundtrack of Blade Runner 2049. The video is not altered in any way. I was in San Francisco yesterday when this video was taken and it really looked like this.
Thanks, @SergeantQueen.
The sky here in the South Bay is more gray than orange now, today and yesterday, but the air is more contaminated, gray right down to street level. I’m feeling it. My husband, with his pulmonary disease, is feeling it worse.
We are in the middle of a long, immense plume of smoke being blown steadily down the coast from the fires to the north. The only possible upside is that temperatures have fallen, ending the fierce heat wave of last week. I suppose that’s because the sun isn’t getting through. We dinosaurs may be in for it.
Anybody here from johnpowell?
^^ Profile shows his last checkin as today, 9/12. So—ok, I guess?
@Jeruba Good. I am sick at heart for what is happening on the West Coast. Can’t we lend you a couple of hurricanes?
I agree that Ryan’s probably okay, but he might be an evacuee: https://news.yahoo.com/wildfires-closing-in-on-portland-suburbs-force-massive-evacuations-174757430.html
Thankfully for now, there aren’t any fires threatening my part of the LA area. However, we’re having the worst air quality we’ve had, in almost 30 years. In addition to smoke from several fires in LA county, a low pressure center northeast of us, is pulling the smoke from the No Cal fires southward, from there to here.
A silver lining on the smoke clouds, is that they’re keeping our heat about 5–10º below what it would be with clear skies.
I’m alive. Air quality is nasty and the sky looks angry. Visibility is bad. I can only see about 100 feet when I am outside. But we have a ton of cats and dogs so we also have a ton of air purifiers around the house. So the air inside isn’t bad. And it is supposed to rain Monday night so hopefully that helps.
What really screwed us was early this week there was a freakish windstorm 50+ MPH. Before that everything was alright.
We have a fire a few miles away but the wind is in our favor. We do have some friends staying with us because they did have to evacuate.
@johnpowell Very glad to hear from you. The air is really nasty around where my kids live too.
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Air purifiers make a big difference. The wife has one in the bedroom. And by the time I go to bed, my nose is clogged and my eyes burn, but in the morning I’m back to normal. But open the bedroom door to the rest of the house and HOLY SHIT! The smoke smell is a shock—an intense shock. When the wife is up, we’ll move the air purifier to the living room and seal ourselves in. I’m tired of the eye irritation and stuffy nose.
@stanleybmanly
Why not get a purifier for every room that you regularly occupy?
I’m thinking of getting one, but I don’t know how expensive they are; luckily the smoke isn’t yet as invasive down here.
I have an air filter in my room and my parents have one as well. We’ve been mostly leaving the windows closed though.
Is anyone else thinking of leaving the West? I keep seeing articles about how many people
are leaving California, mainly over the high cost of living (especially with working from home becoming the norm) but the wildfires and smoke are a factor too. I made pessimistic prediction at the beginning of the year that the wildfires would be worse than ever and we’d have months of smoke. Looks like I wasn’t wrong. Every place has its problems, but my friend in upstate New York says the worst that happens there is a blizzard every now and then. It’s starting to sound pretty good…
Here is a list of HEPA filters and air purifiers
They’re not cheap; we have two we bought 20 years ago and they cost almost $225 each, they each can handle 400 square feet (we got them for pollen and dust). Luckily we are not dealing with smoke.
My heart goes out to all in harms way and those in smoky conditions.
@Brian1946. That’s exactly what I am considering, but I seriously suspect I won’t be able to locate any. This one’s whirring now here in the kitchen and I’ll be on the net after breakfast.
I have considered moving to California to be closer to family and now am not. I am hoping they might consider moving East.
A few days ago I bought the last air purifier at Target. I would have taken anything I could get at that point. It was a Guardian “air cleaning system” and cost only $89. I don’t expect much from it, but it’s better than nothing and has a visually attractive design. It’s in my husband’s daytime room.
I also ordered two heavier-duty models on Amazon, and they should be here in a couple of days. I saw that I could have spent up to $600 apiece, but I’m not filtering a mansion, just smallish rooms in a smallish house. As we used to say when six drops of rain came down during a drought, “Is it going to make it worse?”
Meanwhile, the AQI today is 212, and my husband has to go to the doctor, a visit rescheduled from last week when the air was actually better. I’m going to have to coax him through it an inch at a time. It could take us 15 minutes to get about 15 feet to the car.
As for leaving the West, that’s what this question was about last week. The Mid-Atlantic is sounding really good. I long to go home to New England, but I don’t think I have what it takes to live there any more.
Will the history books (assuming there are any) record a great Eastward Ho! migration mirroring the westward movement of the nineteenth century? Some novelist should be working on a fictional alternate-history plot of that one right about now.
^^If only all the would be novelists weren’t too anxious and exhausted to write.!
I hear stories of people fleeing the state. I don’t know any of them, but I wish them all the best and thank them for the parking spaces.
No sales tax in Oregon. It will take more than a few fires to get me away from being able to pay 16.99 for a pair of pants that are tagged as 16.99. F sales tax.
And I hate snow. And I hate humidity. And I hate bugs. Oregon doesn’t really have any of those three things.
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Wooohooo. We got rain. Not a lot but any little bit helps.
@Jeruba I haven’t experienced a New England Winter since I was a boy, but the brutality of Midwestern Winters is hammered into my psyche as clearly as the day the great blizzard blew my frozen ass onto the Greyhound exiting Nebraska. To this day I can remember the grueling 2 day bleak and snow blinding trip, and emerging finally from that bus into brilliant blue skies and 75 degree sunshine. I remember standing in that sunshine and wondering “why isn’t EVERYONE out here? My point is that perhaps New England is (thanks to global warming) in for a more tropical climate. Already the hurricanes are “vacationing” in New York and New Jersey. But I look at the upcoming possible expense of a superb air filtration system for our big house compared to the Winter heating expenses and Summer air conditioning costs to the East and am prepared to sit here and take my chances. The house sits on rock and has survived every quake since its erection in the 20s apparently without a visible crack. I’ll take my chances and try to be ready next year.
@stanleybmanly
“The house sits on rock and has survived every quake since its erection in the 20s apparently without a visible crack.”
I guess a female house would be just a durable in that situation. ;-)
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We ended up getting a substantial amount of rain here in PDX. The AQI is currently 17. On Wednesday it was 320. My sisters husband wasn’t allowed to work if it was over 150. It will be good to get him out of the house again.
I’m not sure how much the rain helped with actually putting out the fires. But at least the air is back to normal.
And yesterday we had puppies, eight of them.
@canidmajor Has Rocky been making flying trips to West Coast unbeknownst to you? No wonder he’s so tired on the couch!
@johnpowell Yay for puppies! More pics please!
@janbb That would be a miracle indeed! :-D
He’s been a soprano for 4 years now. But I bet he’d be a fun Dad!!
Sigh. Looks like we still have a unconstrained fire pretty close here. Air is slightly nasty but it is livable.
Oh.. Puppy pics. They will be two weeks tomorrow. My sister has already sold them. But they won’t be delivered until they are two months old. I didn’t know the dogs are all fancy but I guess the grey pups went for 1800 and the black ones for 1500. Muthertrucking payday. We need to keep her on her side. Just a money printing machine.
ThoseNips
AdorableFatBalls
@johnpowell Ahhh Your second link is broken for me but the first is so cute! Those eyes!!!
And jeez, how close? Will you guys need to evacuate or is it not that bad?
Yeah. I borked the image but it should be fixed now if you reload Fluther to get a fresh URL.
And I think about five miles. But the wind is in our favor.
I hope the wind stays in your favor… so sorry to hear that its so close like that
@johnpowell The coloring on the “grey pups” is called blue merle and they are super popular right now. That’s the type I have, mostly because that was the one with the personality I liked the most. He’s a big ol’ goober.
Yeah, your blue girl is definitely a money machine, everybody loves the Aussies!
Stay safe out there, pat those puppies!
Hope all the ‘money machines’ out there are treated well. :(
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