Los Angeles Air Quality

We went to Carson this morning to visit Ikea. It was a relatively quick trip as we had to pick up something to finialize MetaBaby's costume (ooo...exciting!!), but it always feels like a journey. Everything does when you take the 405. You never know if you'll get stuck in traffic and end up cursing your stupid decisions. Not that I'm one to regret things...I'm just saying.

What struck me was the air. It's not very pleasant in Santa Monica right now, but we can walk to and from the car without gagging. I can't say the same for Carson. When I got out of the car, I smelled smoke. It was bad. I practically sprinted to and from the store (with my wee lad, of course). I feel like I can still smell it, but that's probably my paranoia playing games with me. Not cool, paranoia. Not cool.


I was a little surprised at how bad the air quality seemed in Carson. Yet, it made sense when I thought about it. The erratic winds push all of the smoke westward. As you can see from these pictures, coastal cities are heavily affected, and much like with the fires, there's little predictability of impacted areas.




Imagine being in the line of a smoke of that Malibu fire. Or any fire for that matter.

That said, my obvious concern is for MetaBaby. LA Public Health suggests that sensitive groups (e.g., elderly, very young) avoid prolonged exposure at this time. As a result, we've been avoiding being outdoors, and will continue to do so until the dust settles, so to speak.