ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Poor air quality has health officials encouraging the most vulnerable populations to stay inside.<\/p>\n
It’s the second day of an overwhelming, unhealthy haze that’s visiting from widespread wildfires in Canada.<\/p>\n
Traveling from thousands of miles away, the smoke is making itself comfortable and posing threats for everyone.<\/p>\n
“I’m not playing with this,” said Carl Coleman, an Allentown native. “I’m keeping my windows closed. Staying in the air conditioning.”<\/p>\n
Coleman has worked alongside flames and smoke for years.<\/p>\n
“As a former Western Salisbury firefighter, even if you don’t think something’s coming, or if you think you can breathe easily, maybe not. The toxin’s going in your body, so that’s what fire is about,” Coleman said.<\/p>\n
“To be in the smoke and the humidity is dangerous for us,” added Bonnie Graboski of Allentown.<\/p>\n
Also born and raised in the city, Graboski sat a table away from Coleman and grabbed a bite to eat inside Lehigh Valley Active Life. It’s a senior center downtown.<\/p>\n
The building is air conditioned, cool and never quiet.<\/p>\n
“I was thinking ‘maybe I shouldn’t even go out’, but it’s better for me to be with people, I know at least doing things,” Graboski said.<\/p>\n
“It’s the most extreme health hazard that I’ve ever seen in the Lehigh Valley, just being outdoors. So please stay in, come here, meet people, and get involved with some activities,” said Rick Daugherty, Executive Director at Lehigh Valley Active Life.<\/p>\n
Exercise classes, movies, art programs, “a little pool at the side, a little pinball out front,” said Paul Gensiak of Bethlehem: it all awaits senior citizens.<\/p>\n
“You don’t want to be breathing all that stuff in,” Gensiak said. “It’s bad.”<\/p>\n
Everywhere Gensiak looks, “it’s cloudy,” he said. “I’m not going to go out there and run a couple 100 miles or anything.”<\/p>\n
Once Gensiak is ready to head home from the senior citizen center for the day, he has a piece of advice for everyone else, before they step outside.<\/p>\n
“I mean, you have to go out there at some point. Just limit the time you’re out there,” said Gensiak.<\/p>\n
Health officials said there are some ways people can make sure they are breathing clean air.<\/p>\n
People are encouraged to keep their windows closed and setting their air conditioning to recirculate mode. This goes for homes and cars.<\/p>\n
Folks should continue to keep an eye on the air quality index, avoid exercising outside as well as being outside for long periods of time.<\/p>\n
Officials said people should consider wearing a mask if they have to be outdoors.<\/p>\n
Relief is on the way this weekend. Until then, it’s encouraged that everyone pays attention to how they feel and listen to their bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Poor air quality has health officials encouraging the most vulnerable populations to stay inside. It’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[30286,75782,119,121,120,105455,88653,157,5510,66042,88713],"class_list":["post-246377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-air-quality-alert","tag-air-conditioning","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-canada-wildfires","tag-health-officials","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-senior-safety","tag-vulnerable-populations","tag-wildfire-smoke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246377","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=246377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}