By Gregory Scruggs
SEATTLE, Sept 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Inside a row of warehouses in Seattle’s industrial district, gleaming new air ducts hint at the state-of-the-art filtration systems, ready to help hundreds of people safely recuperate indoors from COVID-19 – and smoke-filled skies.
King County, Washington retrofitted the former automotive facilities to accommodate a potential surge of coronavirus patients in need of isolation and recovery wards, such as homeless people.
The buildings, with cots separated by curtain walls and plenty of individual shower and bathroom stalls, now have a steady stream of occupants – but they are not sick with COVID-19.
Seattle’s smoke shelters are among several emergency responses implemented in the last two weeks as wildfires rage across the western United States, burning about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) and spewing toxic plumes of ash and smoke.
“We’re all in this together. We have to make sure those who don’t have a place to go have a healthy environment to be in,” King County executive Dow Constantine told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“(Healthy air) is not just for those of us who have money and privilege and the ability to seal ourselves in our homes and recirculate our filtered air systems, it’s for everyone.”
Seattle’s so-called “healthy air center” opened on Sept. 11, as the air quality in some West Coast cities joined the ranks of the worst in the world, according to a global index maintained by Swiss company IQAir.
“The air quality is horrible,” said one homeless man standing outside the center who wished to remain anonymous. “I had to go to Harborview (hospital) and get another inhaler.”
