Quarantine Update #3

Just when I thought the air could not get any scarier. Last Tuesday at about 3am I woke up to the smell of stale bonfire around 3am and could not get back to sleep because I felt like I couldn't breathe. I didn't know it at the time, but the root of the rude awakening was smoke from the wildfires in... well, everywhere. The entire west coast is currently burning. It was the case for some time before 3am last Tuesday and it is still going on at the time of this writing a week later.

We had a brief reprieve for about a day before we received warnings of an impending "air quality emergency" that we had to prepare for immediately if we had not already. Being the naïve midwestern boy I am, I had never heard of such a thing and immediately headed to the store to get an air filter, bungee cord, and box fan. Assembled properly, this setup forms a pretty effective air purifier given a good enough filter (anything above a MERV 11 rated filter will do, apparently). To my dismay when I got there, the Coasters™ were way ahead of me and had bought out all the 20x20 filters. And box fans. And bungee cords.

In a panic, I purchased a normal furnace filter (still MERV 12 but a very unfortunate size) and started trying to figure out how we were going to create an air purifier with what we already had.

By serendipity, a few things came together which allowed us to put together a seemingly effective device to make our inside air at least somewhat tolerable:

• Having just moved, we have a plethora of cardboard boxes
• And packing tape
• And because there's no air conditioning anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, we also had just received a little 8-inch desk fan that day

So now as if by some cosmic joke, it has somehow become even more dangerous to go into the outside world. In fact, because we cannot even open the windows we've been keeping the shades closed to keep the heat from the sun out. Which means now we cannot even see the outside world. This reminds me of a few months ago when the State and National parks were all closed and we had nothing to do and nowhere to go. I guess we have to learn repeatedly not to take anything for granted.

To be honest, this was not really the Seattle experience I was anticipating when we decided to move out here. Fortunately, the new apartment we are living in is perfect and a great place to ride out the storm or, correctly, to wait for a storm to blow in and take the smoke out of the air.

On the plus side, I've learned a lot about air quality in the past week. It turns out there are particles that we are particularly worried about when it comes to air pollution because they are small enough to work their way into our systems when we come into contact with them. These particles are generally referred to as PM2.5 and are 2.5 micrometers or less. They are particularly dangerous because they stay in the air for a long time and are small enough to penetrate deep into your lungs and into your bloodstream. They've been linked to premature death from heart and lung disease.

You can protect yourself against outdoor PM2.5 by shutting your doors and windows and using an air filter in your living space. If, however, you don't have a filtered intake for outside air into your closed apartment, I am also learning today that CO2 levels in your home can increase to levels that cause lethargy, headaches, and general misery. Below is a graph I stole from a neighbor of mine off Reddit who has an air-quality monitoring station:

This is what things look like in a situation just like ours. Windows shut for days to keep out the smoke. Honestly, the mental effects are almost as bad as the physical. In addition to the headaches, constant sweating, loss of mental acuity, and inability to sleep because it's always so hot in our apartment, I am finding myself in a state of panic and emotional disarray. There's not much more I can do than I have already done, but it's clearly not enough. Luckily Cara has an office to go to during the day with HEPA filtration so she seems to be faring much better than I am, stuck in this apartment 24 hours a day.

If everyone could join me in wishing, begging, sending good vibes, and praying for this low-pressure system to move in off the coast to clean up our air, please do.