It all started with a loud bang overhead and at that moment I knew what was in store for San Jose and its residents. In the mornings following the Aug. 16 dry lightning storm, the smell of smoke wafting through the air of San Jose State’s Campus Village B became a normal thing.
Meanwhile on campus, residents walked around with cloth masks ignoring the ash falling around them.
As a resident of the apartments on campus, it is worrying that there has been very little communication between the University Housing Services and residents on the fire closing in on San Jose and the poor air quality accompanying these fires.
The fires surrounding San Jose seem to show no signs of slowing as the SCU lightning complex fire is only 10% contained and the CZU lightning complex fire is only 13% contained.
Together these fires have burned 425,196 acres according to the Cal Fire website. Both of these fires are still increasing and closing in on San Jose as the wind has yet to change the course of the fire.
With this information, residents are left questioning why SJSU housing officials have yet to inform their residents of a plan. It is worrisome that the only leadership from SJSU that students have seen is an email about the campus being closed due to bad air quality.
If campus residents are forced to evacuate, there will be many questions to answer. For some residents, we are lucky enough to be equipped with cars that we can use whenever we need to leave.
For others, it is another story. They may not have cars and they may live out of state or just far enough away to the point that they couldn’t drop everything and leave. So where will they go?
This is a question that Housing needs to answer now. It can’t stall a plan for its residents especially when the fire is on the edge of the city and ash is falling from the sky.
Residents can’t wait to evacuate. Housing needs to evacuate students while it can, with the fire as close as it is.
Housing needs to get its residents out before the fire hits the city in full force. Residents need to be informed now so they can plan for their departure to a safer area.
However, if in some lucky turn of events, SJSU doesn’t have to evacuate campus residents in the hours, days or weeks to come, there still needs to be something done about the air we breathe in the building. Every morning the smell of smoke wafts through the building, making the air almost unbreathable.
The air quality only worsens by the minute as the fires grow in size. According to AIRNow, San Jose’s air levels are at an unhealthy level and they are forecasting that it will continue to worsen in the days to come, leaving students’ health at risk.
Housing needs to lend a hand to these students put at risk.
They need to close campus now and if they don’t do that, they need to come up with a solution to keep the smoke from seeping into the building. In the meantime, Housing should provide an N95 mask to each resident, or give students air purifiers to rent out.
Anything would be more helpful than the simple statement about how the campus is closed and it’s not healthy to breathe the air outside.
