Hazy Skies

[Don M.]

Even though we are over 1000 miles from the fires burning in the Western states, our skies have turned gray from all the smoke drifting across the nation. The evening news said that the air in Portland is the most polluted on the planet, and people are getting ill just from breathing. These fires are far from contained, and may be burning for several more weeks.

Then, this hurricane may drop as much as 30 inches of rain on some parts of the Gulf coast....with more storms brewing in the Atlantic. And...the Virus numbers continue to climb. This year is really turning out to be a Bummer.

If there is any "good" news, there haven't been any news reports about the Portland protests in the past couple of days.

 

[Phoenix]

Even though we are over 1000 miles from the fires burning in the Western states, our skies have turned gray from all the smoke drifting across the nation. The evening news said that the air in Portland is the most polluted on the planet, and people are getting ill just from breathing. These fires are far from contained, and may be burning for several more weeks.

Then, this hurricane may drop as much as 30 inches of rain on some parts of the Gulf coast....with more storms brewing in the Atlantic. And...the Virus numbers continue to climb. This year is really turning out to be a Bummer.

If there is any "good" news, there haven't been any news reports about the Portland protests in the past couple of days.

Here on the west side of the Coast Range in Oregon the skies are still smokey. I don't know why they label it haze. The wind is coming in from the Pacific which is moving the smoke east. The fires are getting larger. This is likely to continue until we get good rains. Last year in some of the areas the fires were still burning in October. Those fires were in the southern part of the state in the mountains. There simply is not enough people and equipment to fight all the fires. Plus the rivers and reservoirs are low. So there's not really enough water to put the fires out anyway. They are mostly focusing on saving homes and buildings now. Where I am they are saying that we should have clear skies sometime this weekend. But I'm afraid those to the east will be under smokey skies until the fires go out. Mostly our winds are out of the west. If anyone has any ideas how to get all the rain from the hurricanes over here, we sure could use it. I'd be glad to send buckets.

I asked a friend who lives in Portland. He said that he didn't think the protest were happening in Portland now. So yes, that is good news. There was nothing wrong with the protests. The problem was those who came in from out of the area to create destruction.