Disaster in the air
The Bay Area has been shrouded in smoke as a result of the devastating Camp Fire. Prolonged exposure to bad air quality carries serious health risks, but last week showed many Bay Area cities scrambling to educate their residents and to implement public health plans to reach the most vulnerable populations.
While the past week’s air quality conditions were unusually bad, they could become increasingly common as climate change encourages more, and wilder, wildfires all over California.
“It’s a brave new world out there,” said Randy Quezada, spokesman for San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “We’re definitely looking at ways to adapt our weather protocols for the future.”
Since they lack permanent indoor housing, homeless people are highly vulnerable to the negative effects of bad air quality. Not all of San Francisco’s shelters are open 24 hours a day, and homeless activists have blasted the city for leaving people outside in unhealthy conditions.
It’s true that San Francisco didn’t open additional 24-hour shelters in response to the conditions, Quezada said — but both public and private organizations opened their doors as respite centers , and his agency offered other assistance.
As the air quality problems lingered, San Francisco did add additional mat space in shelters. Toward the end of the week, additional beds were made available as part of the city’s annual winter program.
But Quezada said not all of them were used.
“Getting people to say yes is always the trick,” he said. “Part of it is simply expanding people’s understanding of air quality risks.”
Most Bay Area schools, and many businesses, had abruptly closed their doors last week in the face of worsening air conditions.
Matthai Chakko, a spokesperson for Berkeley, said that city also struggled to bring homeless residents indoors.
“We added an additional 50 beds available to homeless residents on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Chakko said. “Most of the people we did outreach to wanted to stay outside.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office is planning a review of its air quality response, according to spokesperson Jeff Cretan. “We think we can learn from what happened and continue to develop our plans for the future, because unfortunately this is probably not the last time this is going to happen,” Cretan said.
Unfortunately, he’s right. As the Bay Area looks at a long-term future of climate change, it needs to add air pollution to its list of disaster plans. That means more public education, more regional coordination and a deeper understanding of how to protect the most vulnerable from the effects of prolonged exposure.