The Statue of Liberty and the skyscrapers of Manhattan shrouded in an orange and brown fog: the wildfires in Quebec obscure the famous “skyline” of New York on Wednesday and make the air very difficult to breathe for its 8.5 million of inhabitants.
Covid masks are reappearing on the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, like Hugh Hill walking his dog in Central Park, the gigantic green lung of the economic and cultural capital of the United States.
Eyes and throat that “sting”, this 43-year-old lawyer says he does everything not to breathe too much of this air with the acrid smell, characteristic of burnt wood.
“I don’t know if it’s psychological or physical, but I know there are advantages to wearing a mask even if, obviously, it can’t prevent everything,” he told AFP.
Since the beginning of the week, the authorities of the city and the State of New York have multiplied the alert messages and started distributing masks.
“I am saddened today to see that New York City, which usually enjoys good air quality, has one of the worst in the world because of these wildfires” in Canada, s New York Senator Chuck Schumer is alarmed, speaking Wednesday from the Senate in Washington, where he leads the Democratic majority.
The situation is even worse in the large, green, upscale suburbs north of New York along the Hudson River, where the sky turns yellow-orange-gray and the air scrapes your throat.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said Wednesday’s air quality index dropped from ‘harmful to ‘very harmful’ and all outdoor school and extracurricular activities were suspended or suspended. limited “to what is strictly necessary”.
“This is not the day to train for the marathon,” warned, with his sense of understatement, the city’s mayor Eric Adams.
According to IQAir.com, which monitors pollution levels around the world, the index for New York reached “158”, with a concentration of PM2.5 micro-particles at a level 14 times higher than the World Health Organization standards.
Tuesday evening, this index reached “218”, a record.
New York’s most famous landmarks — Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, One World Trade Center Tower — no longer stand out as usual under clear blue skies.
“Yesterday, when I came home from my classes, I was breathing smoke,” testifies to AFP Evangelia Antonakos, a 47-year-old mathematics teacher, accompanied by her 5-year-old child also wearing a mask.
Further south, the federal capital Washington also woke up on Wednesday to a pungent smell and cloudy skies despite sunny weather.
“The air quality today will be harmful to the health of people with heart or respiratory disease, the elderly, children and adolescents,” according to local authorities.
As in New York and the state of Maryland, public schools have canceled outdoor activities for children, including sports.
Washington’s air quality index was 199 Wednesday morning — on a scale of zero to 500 — a level considered “harmful” and expected to persist Thursday.
And according to the fire.airnow.gov site, tens of millions of inhabitants of the northeastern and eastern United States (New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.) are subject to this week to very poor air quality.
burs number/rle
06/07/2023 22:09:36 – New York (AFP) – © 2023 AFP