A Wind Advisory is in effect for Thursday until 10 am for the Diablo Range, East Bay Hills and North Bay Mountains along with a wind advisory until 4 pm for Solano County.

Prepare early to prevent possible damage from dangerous winds gusting 40 to 55 mph.

WATCH LIVE: Track wind speeds in real-time around SF Bay Area

Make sure to secure all outdoor items, avoid parking under trees and charge batteries in case you lose power overnight.

High profile vehicles driving across east/west bridges like the Richmond San Rafael Bridge, the Bay Bridge, San Mateo Bridge and Dumbarton Bridge will deal with gusty crosswinds.

The excessive speed and exceptionally dry air elevate our fire danger.

We would be under fire weather watches, but the vegetation in the Bay Area is not too dry and the temperature is mild.
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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The post Harmful, gusty winds transferring by Bay Space appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Bay City News Service

SAN FRANCISCO – Residents of San Francisco’s public housing development Potrero Hill and Sunnydale this week urged the city’s housing authority to deal with what they believe to have failed to repair units, resulting in dangerous living conditions.

The San Francisco Housing Authority owns and operates two public housing developments, the Potrero Hill Property and the Sunnydale Property, located in the Visitation Valley neighborhood.

A total of around 3,800 people live in the two settlements.

Although the city is currently engaged in housing rebuilding and renovation at the Sunnydale and Potrero Hill locations, the project plans to rebuild the rundown council housing and create additional marketable units to create new mixed income housing developments. t be completed for several years.

According to United Front Against Displacement supporters, the residents of the public housing in Potrero Hill and Sunnydale, who have not yet been relocated to new units, are living in unsafe conditions.

On Thursday, United Front Against Displacement revealed several recent complaints filed with the agency by local residents – complaints that included issues such as leaking pipes, mold and bedbugs.

The group said the complaints went unanswered by the SFHA.

“For years, the San Francisco Housing Authority has practiced a consistent pattern of willful negligence in their properties, irresponsibly forcing residents to move into dangerous homes that have major mold problems, pests and the like,” United Front Against Displacement officials said in a statement on Thursday.

“Residents of Sunnydale and Potrero Hill, the two remaining public housing in San Francisco, are fed up with SFHA’s inaction and apologies. Residents are organizing with their neighbors to stand together and demand that their homes and buildings be repaired while remaining public housing and not being turned over to private developers and management companies, “the group said.

Although SFHA currently manages two locations, a takeover by Eugene Burger Management Corporation is planned.

According to United Front Against Displacement, residents were notified for 90 days in September that their leases with SFHA will be terminated as EBMC will begin managing developments in December.

Under a private landlord, residents would have fewer rights and would be more vulnerable to rent increases and evictions, the group said.

As of last week, local residents have held two separate protest rallies, one on October 15 at the Sunnydale site, when Mayor of London Breed, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, US Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a media event highlighting the Build Back Better Act. Local residents held another protest on Monday, this time in front of San Francisco City Hall.

The SFHA did not respond to a request for comment.

The post San Francisco public housing residents name on Housing Authority to treatment ‘harmful’ residing situations – East Bay Occasions appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Four-year-old Kenneth was crying as he led his younger brother, William, down 97th Avenue in Oakland. William, too, was weeping. They couldn’t have looked more lost if they’d tried. When the woman asked them what was wrong, Kenneth sniffled. “Grandma told us not to leave home,” he said. “She was going to the store to buy doughnuts and chocolate milk.”

The woman said she would help them. After all, their grandmother couldn’t have gone far if she was just making a trip to the corner store. But they wandered the streets for an hour without any sign of her. The boys were exhausted, so the good Samaritan flagged down a passing patrol car. An officer gently loaded the boys into his vehicle and drove them down to the station. 

There, Kenneth chatted willingly. He said his parents had died in a car crash, and their grandmother had brought the boys by bus to Oakland. When Kenneth said they lived in Florida, one officer felt the hairs on the back of neck stand up. He grabbed the day’s newspaper, its front page plastered with images of America’s most wanted murderer. 

“Do you know who this lady is?” the officer asked Kenneth.

“Oh,” the boy exclaimed. “That’s grandma!”

—

For nearly 200 years, San Francisco has been the last stop of petty thieves, con artists and killers. Iva Kroeger was all three. 

Iva was born Lucille Hooper in Kentucky in 1922, the daughter of day laborer William Hooper and Norwegian immigrant Zellma Hergis. The details of her childhood are sparse, but she burst onto the police blotter in 1945 with the first salvo in her lifelong crime spree. She was arrested in Chicago after police were tipped that a young woman was going around pretending to be a war hero. Lucille Hooper was apparently bragging that she was a Navy nurse who had survived a stint in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The War Department had no record of any such person, and she was charged with illegally wearing the uniform of a military nurse. She pleaded guilty and immediately violated the terms of her probation by heading west.

In her dust, she left behind a husband in Louisville, their two sons and her old identity. As she racked up misdemeanor theft charges, she also accrued a rolodex of fake names. Depending on who she met, she was Paula Marie Pearson, Lucille Cecelia Huffman, Paula Mydel Byrd, Paula Shoemaker or Lucille Cooper, just to name a few. For reasons unknown, she had settled on Iva when she met and married Ralph Kroeger, a San Francisco man who made a living carrying bricks (seriously), in 1954.

There was no marital bliss in the Kroeger home at 490 Ellington Avenue in San Francisco’s Outer Mission. They were perpetually broke, and they complained often about creditors nipping at their heels. Fleeing bill collectors, the Kroegers, using the names Eva and Ralph Long, moved into a cheap Santa Rosa motel in November 1961. 

The seeds of Iva’s plan quickly sprouted. Across the street was another low-rent motel, the Rose City Motor Court. Iva began inquiring if the motel was for sale. It wasn’t, so she next ingratiated herself with the owners, Mildred and Jay Arneson. Mildred, 58, was a nurse, and Jay, a World War I major, was suffering from the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease. 

Although photos show a dead-eyed, dour woman, Iva’s career as a con artist suggests she must have been charming and persuasive. Within a month, she’d convinced her new Santa Rosa friends that she was awarded $100,000 in an accident claim. Iva said she wanted to spend the money on an all-expenses-paid girls’ trip to Brazil, and Mildred happily agreed. Mildred took out over $1,000 in traveler’s checks and wrote to her mother in Washington to let her know she was headed out of the country for a bit.

But weeks turned to a month, and Mildred’s family began to worry when they heard nothing from their loved one. They asked Santa Rosa police to send someone to the Rose City Motor Court. The dispatched officer was met by the new proprietor, Iva, who told him Mildred signed the deed over to her shortly before leaving on a trip. She figured Mildred was just on an extended vacation in Mexico. The officer gave her the phone number of Mildred’s sister, Beatrice Brunn — which he mistakenly wrote as “Brown” — and told Iva to give the family a call when she could.

A few weeks later, two mysterious notes arrived at the doors of Mildred’s family. Her mother got a letter signed “Mildred’; family members knew she always signed correspondence as “Mil.” Her sister Beatrice, meanwhile, received a telegram addressed to Beatrice Brown, the same mistake made by police. The family became even more convinced something sinister had happened.

The 1300 block of Santa Rosa Avenue in Santa Rosa, which was once the home of the Rose City Motor Court.

Google Street View

“We know our sister,” one sister told the press. “She wouldn’t leave without letting us or her daughter know.”

By this time, Jay Arneson too had disappeared. In late January, Iva, Jay and two friends drove to San Francisco. They stopped at the Ellington Avenue home, where Iva requested they help with some “plumbing” work in the garage. One of the friends dug a large hole in the floor while the rest watched, and then all drove to a nearby hospital for Jay’s doctor’s appointment. Iva escorted Mildred’s husband inside the hospital, and then returned a short time later to tell her waiting friends to head home without them; it was going to take a bit longer for the doctor to see him. The friends drove back to Santa Rosa, never to see Jay again.

To the frustration and horror of the Arnesons’ family members, police shrugged their shoulders, assuming the missing couple had indeed gone abroad. All of Iva’s paperwork was in order, and it seemed she did indeed lawfully own the motel.

Months passed. Iva put the motel on the market for $72,000. Ralph moved back to San Francisco. Finally, on August 20, eight months after Mildred disappeared, police executed a search warrant on the Ellington Avenue home. They noticed right away that there were two uneven, gray patches in the light blue garage floor. Police started digging.

They found Jay’s body first, the belt used to strangle him still around his neck. Under the other patch was Mildred, stuffed into a trunk. She, too, had been choked to death. 

At last, the noose was closing in on Iva. But she was already gone.

—

A few months prior, Iva pulled a gun on a water company worker who came to the motel demanding she pony up $4,900 in unpaid bills. Furious, she waved around a pistol and threatened to kill him. Santa Rosa police issued an arrest warrant, and Iva went on the run.

Now accused of three violent crimes, Iva became America’s most famous murderess overnight. Her photo ran on front pages across the nation, accompanied by the description: “She has a bad temper, and is a proverbial liar.” Papers dubbed the 44-year-old the “ghostly grandma,” “glib grandmother” and, least flattering of all, “dumpy grandma.”

Tips poured in, most of them worthless, but police did nothing to tamp down hysteria throughout the Bay Area. One detective casually speculated that Iva was likely laying low as a babysitter “for some unsuspecting San Francisco family.” A slightly more helpful detective warned Iva’s friends that anyone who aided the fugitive “might wind up under their own patio.”

“If anyone crosses her path and doesn’t have enough sense to get in out of the rain, then they’re sure going to get wet,” San Francisco chief of inspectors Dan McKlem said.

Two days after the manhunt began, Iva’s grandsons were found wandering the streets of Oakland. The boys’ parents told a shocking story. After years without contact, Grandma Iva had recently appeared at their door. She said she’d just bought a motel in California, and she wanted help running it. She promised to take the boys first, and would soon send the money for her son Kenneth and his wife Joyce to join them. 

“She was the type that could talk to anyone and make them think the moon’s gold,” Joyce told the Oakland Tribune.

“We were having it real tough,” Kenneth added. “She made it sound so good we fell for it hook, line and sinker.”

Police guessed Iva had kidnapped the boys and set them loose in Oakland to throw authorities off her trail. Joyce had another theory. Several years after abandoning her children and husband in Louisville, Iva suddenly wanted custody of her sons. She asked Kenneth to come live with her instead of his father. He told her no. 

“Mrs. Kroeger told someone that Kenny had hurt her deeply,” Joyce remembered, “and that someday she would hurt him the same way.”

—

Meanwhile in San Francisco, crowds swarmed the Kroeger home. Police guarded it day and night after an over-eager souvenir seeker broke a window. 

As was customary at the time, reporters were allowed to traipse all over the scene, taking photographs and touching whatever they liked. An Examiner reporter found a new, taffeta-bound baby book filled with cards. “Congratulations on your twins!” read one from the Longfellow Elementary School PTA. A list in the back of the book detailed dozens of gifts from friends. Iva hadn’t had a baby — let alone two — in over a decade. 

Ralph Kroeger, who Iva hadn’t bothered to warn of the impending chaos, had been living in the home, basement bodies and all. After he was taken in custody and charged with murder, he spent most of his time denying his involvement. (Although it’s unclear if he was directly involved in the killings, there’s no doubt he knew what was buried in his garage; witnesses placed him there at the time of some of Iva’s “plumbing” renovations). Ralph also complained loudly about the motel to anyone who would listen.

“That damn place! I worked up there cleaning that joint up. It was a condemned joint,” he whined to the Examiner from prison. “They were getting ready to close it up until I started painting it. It wasn’t fit for hogs to live in. That’s the reason I wouldn’t live in a place like that under my own name.”

On September 9, Iva was spotted at a San Diego church. Her choice to flee to San Diego sent alarm through the Arneson family; Jay’s sons Jack and Dick lived five miles away. Police warned them to be vigilant. Both men began carrying guns with them at all times.

Later that day, a World War II POW named Joseph Bonamo saw a tired-looking woman on his street. He didn’t recognize her and struck up a conversation. She said she was destitute and struggling to make ends meet with a sick nine-year-old daughter. Joseph, who hated to see anyone go hungry, invited her to dinner with his wife Christine.

Once inside the Bonamo home, the woman began acting strangely. She refused to take off a pair of dark sunglasses and twice requested to make calls, dragging the phone into a bedroom and shutting the door behind her. When the Bonamos began chatting about all the violence in the news, the woman lifted her head and commented, “The Bible says it is wrong to kill.”

The next day, Joseph and Christine were paging through the newspaper when they stopped on a photo of a wanted woman named Iva Kroeger. Christine grabbed a pen, and drew two dark sunglass lenses over the woman’s eyes. She looked exactly like their dinner guest.

Joseph called the local police, who told him they were done working for the day, and recommended he call back later. Luckily Joseph realized the urgency of his tip, even if the police didn’t. He tried the FBI, which immediately sent officers to the woman’s east San Diego apartment. For the first time in her life, Iva gave up without a fight.

“I’m overjoyed and tremendously relieved,” Jack Arneson told reporters. “Now I can take the shells out of the .38.”

—

Relief would soon turn to disgust, though, as Iva kicked off a media circus that Court TV could only dream of. 

Hoping to crack their cardigan-wearing murder suspect, police dragged Iva back to San Francisco for a shocking surprise. In her garage, they gathered four of the prosecution’s witnesses to confront her at the Arnesons’ makeshift graves. “The treatment, designed to break down the most hardened criminal, did not faze the elusive grandmother one whit,” the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported. It did faze her attorney, however, who understandably hit the roof, shouting that his client’s constitutional rights had been violated.

Police brought Iva Kroeger to her San Francisco home where she buried two bodies, confronting her with witnesses to the crime. This front page ran on the Press Democrat on Sept. 13, 1962.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat archives

On the way out, a crowd of 300 onlookers jostled for a closer look at the killer. Photographers’ flash bulbs snapped and lit up the normally quiet street. The Press Democrat described the scene as “reminiscent to the appearance of a Hollywood great attending a sure box office hit on opening night.” Iva smiled, stopping briefly to proclaim her innocence to the gathered media. 

“I sleep good, and I’m just a happy person,” she said.

The trial of Iva and Ralph Kroeger began in January 1963. In the intervening months, Iva had settled on a strategy: She was going to fake her way to a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. She kicked off the trial by escaping her guard and bum-rushing the assistant D.A., throwing a rosary over his shoulder. Iva spent the rest of jury selection glaring so hard at one woman that the judge ended up dismissing her. Iva also gleefully told reporters she’d been reading astrology books to pass the time. “I want to make up some charts,” she said. “I’m going to find out the birthdays of all the people in that trial and if any of them is lying, maybe I’ll come up with some surprises.” A few days later, one of the jurors’ husbands died of a heart attack. The media blamed Iva’s “hex.”

Throughout witness testimony, Iva talked relentlessly and took off her shoes to bang on the defense table. “Irascible Iva Kroeger didn’t take the witness stand yesterday but she might as well have,” the Examiner reported. Ralph pinched her arm “black and blue” as he “repeatedly jabbed her and asked her to keep quiet.”

Then, for utterly incomprehensible reasons, Iva’s lawyer decided it would be a good idea to put her on the stand. She screamed for 15 minutes straight while the judge begged her to calm down. “You should force her to testify,” he told her lawyers. “This is the time.”

“I can’t be forced to do nothin’,” she shouted back. “You can’t make a horse take a drink.”

After calling a recess for Iva’s lawyers to talk her down, she returned willing to testify. It went extraordinarily poorly. She started off monologuing for an hour straight, listing off grievances and rambling about police wrongdoings. When the prosecution was allowed to cross-examine her, the farcical proceeding hit a new low.

“Iva Kroeger tried to match wits with the prosecution yesterday but it was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre all over again,” the Examiner wrote. “By actual count she tripped herself up 42 times.” 

Seeing that things were not going her way, Iva broke free of her seat and “leaped around the court like a deer,” eliciting gasps from the gallery. When this was not enough to end the cross examination, Iva raced over to the district attorney’s table and swept his papers off it with hysterical yelps. The bailiff had to pick her up and forcibly remove her from the courtroom.

Three psychiatrists then testified that Iva was perfectly sane and only faking her madness to get out of legal consequences. “She’s naughty,” said one on the stand. “She lies with ingenuity, cruelty, wickedness, cool calculation and evil conduct and intent — like a devil.”

After nearly two months of courtroom antics, the jury was sent to deliberate. It took them only five hours to return guilty verdicts for both Iva and Ralph. Neither made much of a fuss, with Iva feebly declaring the jury was “paid off” and Ralph, ever the sad sack of a man, murmuring, “I didn’t expect it.”

—

This was not the end for Iva Kroeger, although it was for Ralph. In 1966, two years shy of Johnny Cash’s infamous visit, Ralph died of cancer at Folsom Prison. His obituary noted that he would have likely been found not guilty if he’d elected to be tried separately from Iva. There was, after all, no physical evidence directly linking Ralph to the murders. But he’d been loyal to the end, and he died alone in prison.

Iva, it was reported, was going blind and learning braille to cope. In 1975, she was granted parole; the board praised her behavior while incarcerated and cited her failing vision as a factor in her being unlikely to reoffend. The Press Democrat said she moved to Riverside, where she was taking classes at the University of California and attending a local church of Scientology. Her parole officer told the paper she was back to using her birth name, Lucille, and was known as “a bit of a nuisance” among city bus drivers. She apparently liked to ride around, white cane in hand, and complain to strangers about serving “13 years for a crime she didn’t commit.”

It seemed her years of infamy were over when, out of the blue, she made headlines again in 1987: Police in Cape Coral, Florida were seeking her arrest for allegedly threatening to murder a man she blamed for the tragic drowning of one of her grand-nieces. The man told police the 69-year-old had repeatedly made violent calls to his home before showing up to kill him. When police ran her name, they found her criminal record. They were astonished, in no small part because the woman they were investigating showed no sign of visual impairment. They wondered if she’d faked it in order to secure an early release and, having achieved her goal, could then apply for state aid for blind residents.

What happened next is a mystery. There are no further stories about an arrest, and Iva disappeared permanently from the public eye. No obituaries ran when she died in 2000, but a gravestone with her name surfaced upon searching public cemetery records. The grave was in Boston, so we sent a request to the city for her death certificate.

It arrived in a few days, the last known bits of Iva Kroeger’s life. She is listed as Ralph Kroeger’s widow, her occupation “homemaker.” At the time of her death, she was living in what appears to be public housing on Union Park Street in Boston. Her next of kin was not kin at all, but a social worker. She died of cervical cancer.

The death certificate for Iva Kroeger, issued by the city of Boston. She died of cancer in 2000.

Katie Dowd/SFGATE

As for the Kroeger house on Ellington Avenue, it was seized by the bank in 1962. A year later, it was back on the market. A real estate listing in the Chronicle asked $22,500 for the property. “Four bedrooms, 2 baths! ½ block Mission St.! Vacant!” the listing read. 

It’s not clear what happened to Iva’s many furnishings inside the home. More likely than not, they were sold off by the bank to make a few bucks. Somewhere in the Bay Area, someone may unknowingly have Iva’s table or chairs. And it’s possible someone ended up with the plaque that once graced the entryway, a poem dedicated to the joys of friendship.

“My friend is one who knows me well,” it read. “Yet loves me just the same.”

The post Essentially the most harmful lady in San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

“We’ve been monitoring the smoke for weeks now,” said Nicco. “I want to give you a quick update because our skies will look a lot smokier than they really are.”

WATCH LIVE: Track real-time temperatures and air quality in Bay Area

Satellite images show the smoke from space.

“What you will really notice are those eerie sunrises and sunsets as the smoke on the middle and upper levels pours back into North Bay and East Bay on Tuesday,” Nicco explained.

The smoke moves in two different directions.

VIDEO: What’s in Forest Fire Smoke? How it can affect your health

“It was moving east, but now some of it is moving west and it’s being carried away in the ocean layer, and that’s why that’s going to bring a little haze to our skies,” Nicco said.

The Air District has not issued a Spare the Air Alert.

“At the moment there aren’t any, but you can definitely see the rise later on Tuesday and another rise later in the morning, but the most dangerous low-level smoke will stay way up our north and in the sierra,” added Nico .

Nicco says the smoke will cover all of our neighborhoods when we leave Wednesday afternoon and evening.

“If it gets a little cloudy outside, that’s why,” said Nicco

RELATED STORIES & VIDEOS:

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The post California wildfire smoke brings layer of haze over San Francisco Bay Space, ‘most harmful’ air in Sierra appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The coronavirus pandemic is already stressful for most Californians. Add in forest fires and the situation is worse.

Smoke from huge forest fires is once again choking the Bay Area and creating unhealthy air quality. Given this year’s fire season, how will smoke affect people suffering from or recovering from COVID-19 or people with chronic lung disease?

“It is worrying because we have no other problem to deal with,” said Dr. Vinayak Jha, a San Francisco pulmonologist affiliated with Sutter Health’s California Pacific Medical Center.

“People are already worried about catching the virus and getting sick. Having breathing problems and other problems and then having a natural disaster or multiple fires during the fire season is not comfortable, ”he said.

In July, Governor Gavin Newsom pointed out the additional challenges that forest fire evacuations bring to California during the pandemic, particularly in shelters and fire camps.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those who are particularly vulnerable to forest fire smoke are: 65 years and older, teenagers 18 and younger, people with chronic health problems, and those who are pregnant, work outdoors, or have low incomes. Some of them overlap with groups that are also susceptible to COVID-19.

Early indications of risks

While there are still no definitive answers on the effects of forest fire smoke on COVID-19 patients, experts can use research on smoking and air pollution to draw preliminary conclusions.

“Wildfire smoke is like tobacco smoke without nicotine,” said Dr. John Balmes, professor of medicine at UCSF and environmental health science at UC Berkeley. “It is a plant material that, when burned, produces carbon particles with unpleasant hydrocarbons that are toxic.”

As an example, he took the 2018 Camp Fire. This flame caused fine dust, known as PM2.5 particles, to migrate from the northern part of the Central Valley down into the Bay Area. A thick haze blanketed the area for weeks, closing schools and shops, with northern California’s air quality rated as the worst in the world for several days.

“Fine particles are small enough to penetrate the deep lungs and can cause inflammation,” he said. “The acute effects of forest fire smoke on the lungs of firefighters have been investigated and there is evidence of inflammation. … The closer you are to the fire, the greater the risk of ignition. “

PhD student Joao Carreira walks through Sproul Plaza wearing a respirator at UC Berkeley on Friday, November 16, 2018. The place was largely deserted after university officials canceled classes on Friday due to unhealthy air conditions, which continued to keep the Bay Area with heavy smoke from campfires in Butte County.Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2018

Jha said forest fires and air pollution from vehicles and factories have some of the same PM2.5 particles.

“There are increasing reports from China, Europe and the US that the more air pollution, the more COVID deaths and cases,” Jha said. “So there is cause for concern that forest fire smoke is not only bad for people in general, but can also affect people’s susceptibility to contracting the virus.”

Inhaling forest fire smoke can cause shortness of breath, coughing, and sore throat. So the coronavirus could “definitely make your symptoms worse,” Jha said.

One thing that Dr. Monica Minguillon, pulmonologist at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center, was particularly concerned about the long-term effects of COVID-19, especially in severe cases and in the hospital.

“One of the things we see … is that it can take a long time to recover,” she said. “It will be months and years before we know the long-term consequences. Anyone recovering from chronic lung disease needs to be on high alert during the forest fire season. “

Tips for dealing with forest fire smoke

So what should people recovering from COVID-19 or living with other respiratory illnesses do when forest fire smoke becomes a problem?

All experts agree that unless there are mandatory evacuations, it is best to stay indoors with the windows closed – a step that is made easier as most people are already seeking refuge in the pandemic.

But that also means keeping your home as clean and pollutant-free as possible. Balmes said installing a high quality air filter in the HVAC system with a Minimum Efficiency Report Value (MERV) of 13 or higher that filters out the particulates that can get into the deep lungs.

For those without a ventilation system, Balmes recommends a portable HEPA filter air purifier that is certified by the California Air Resources Board and can cost anywhere from $ 200 to $ 1,000.

Poor San Francisco air quality during the 2018 forest fires. The EPA recently declined to raise standards for particulate matter before experts believe this will be a bad fire season in California.Russell Yip / The Chronicle

An air purifier cleans a room, so people might want to consider additional air purifiers for rooms where they spend most of their time. If an air purifier is too expensive to buy, experts can make a DIY version with a box fan and air filter.

Jha said COVID-19 patients should be in close contact with their doctor and not exert themselves, especially at the onset of the disease.

How to Track Air Quality

Experts also recommend checking current air quality conditions regularly on the Federal Air Quality Index and the Bay Area Spare the Air website. The Chronicle’s Air Quality Tracker also shows the current fire-emitted particulate matter in the Bay Area and state.

For more information on air quality and forest fire smoke, visit AirNow.gov. For more resources, see the CDC Forest Fire Smoke and Coronavirus website.

If you have to leave home when forest fire smoke is in the air and you have a pre-existing medical condition or have recovered from COVID-19, an N95 respirator is the best protection against smoke and coronavirus. As these are needed by health care workers, they are in short supply.

Experts say fabric covers and surgical masks don’t protect against forest fire smoke, but Balmes said that most healthy people don’t need a specific type of mask.

Two UC Berkeley students walk through Sproul Plaza wearing respirators on November 16, 2018. The site was largely deserted after university officials canceled classes due to unhealthy air conditions due to the heavy smoke from the Butte County’s campfire.

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2018

Jha said it was important to stay vigilant in the pandemic and be as prepared as possible for wildfire.

“Keep yourself socially aloof and wear a mask in public,” he said. “Take precautions: know how to check the air quality index, check your own home system, and have a plan in case you need to leave the area.”

The Chronicle’s Fire Map and Tracker provides information on forest fires currently burning in California.

Kellie Hwang is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang

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A plan approved by Millbrae officials to allow biotech business premises to be built near the city’s train station has been criticized by officials at the nearby airport, who claimed such a development would be dangerous and inappropriate.

Representatives from San Francisco International Airport sent a letter to Millbrae officials expressing concerns about a proposal that would allow biotech companies to undertake commercial developments in the Millbrae Station Area Specific Plan.

The letter comes ahead of a meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 12, when Millbrae City Council is due to ratify an earlier decision to repeal the airport’s land use committee that would facilitate the approval of life science businesses near Millbrae Avenue and El Camino Real.

With biotech companies routinely working with hazardous materials, airport officials claimed their presence on the flight path of a popular airport could increase the risk to residents in the event of a plane crash.

“The city should carefully examine the health, safety and well-being of its citizens in the event of an airplane accident,” said the letter signed by Nupur Sinha, acting airport planning director.

Millbrae Mayor Ann Schneider disagreed with the assessment that the types of biotech companies potentially allowed to occupy the sites would not pose a great threat to the community.

“We believe the Level 2 biotech facility poses no risk at all,” Schneider said, referring to the types of companies that may be allowed in the region. Biosecurity level 2 companies deal with diseases such as hepatitis, HIV, E. coli and staphylococci.

In November, Millbrae officials expressed their interest in overturning an earlier decision by the airport’s land use committee, which in October concluded that biotechnology would not be an appropriate use in the area.

In its decision, the Land Use Committee said biotechnology companies working with potentially hazardous materials should not be allowed in Zone 2, an area south of Millbrae Avenue, as it is in the inner arrivals and departures zone.

In the event a plane crashes on or off runways 19 L / R, airport officials said the presence of hazardous material could exacerbate the threat to the Millbrae community, according to the letter.

“The release of pathogens in the event of an airplane accident would increase – not minimize – public exposure to safety hazards,” the letter said.

Schneider noted that more dangerous materials for biotech purposes are fully permitted in nearby areas outside the airport flight path.

In addition, Millbrae officials said in their later notice that they were overriding the land use committee, that they would assess potential safety risks as part of the public standards planning process, rather than following the committee’s standards.

Millbrae deputy prosecutor Michael Conneran had previously stated that the regional committee opposition intends to hold the airport harmless if a plane crashes into one of the offices of a biotech company where hazardous materials are present.

Beyond discussing health risks, Schneider said allowing biotech companies to occupy the zone where officials expect major commercial development will help bolster Millbrae’s budget, which could use an infusion of additional revenue .

Schneider nodded at the challenges Millbrae officials faced in coordinating with partner organizations involved in the city’s planning efforts and said she was reluctant to allow airport officials to stand in the way of further growth.

“Millbrae has been pressured economically by all transportation agencies, and that time must stand still,” she said.

austin@smdailyjournal.com

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