<\/p>\n +3
\n DEP issues Code Red Air Quality Alert statewide for Thursday due to particulate matter levels<\/a><\/p>\n
“Makes it a little bit harder to breathe,” Zayas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The City of Bethlehem responded by closing all its pools for the day and rescheduling a block party at Madison Park to Monday.<\/p>\n
The City’s health department tells 69 News, following the poor air quality we experienced back in 2023, the city developed guidelines based on air quality index (AQI) numbers.<\/p>\n
By 3:30 pm Thursday, the AQI here in Bethlehem was 186. Once it’s in the red, the city says it begins shutting down activities for health and safety.<\/p>\n
But other parts of the city don’t necessarily stop for weather.<\/p>\n
“We are at the height of the construction season. So we have a lot of ongoing projects,” said Michael Alkhal, director of Public Works in Bethlehem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though they do at least slow down some.<\/p>\n
“More frequent breaks, make sure there’s, you know, people are, have water available to them,” said Alkhal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Cool towels around the neck, making sure we’re hydrated, ice, lots of drinks,” Zayas said. “I have asthma, I have to stay with my inhaler all day, battling through it.”<\/p>\n
In Allentown, Mayor Tuerk tells 69 News they just closed their pools as well.<\/p>\n
In Easton, fire hydrants and pools are still open for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the heat holds steady and the skies get smokier, health officials are advising people with working air…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232],"class_list":["post-245246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}