The air quality in some Texas homes that were flooded during last year’s Hurricane Harvey is as bad as that of some of the world’s most polluted cities, according to preliminary findings from ongoing research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
In a study using environmental sensors to monitor 30 homes that were flooded and 30 homes that were not flooded, researchers found that some flooded homes had high levels of particulate matter (PM2.5)—fine airborne pollutants less than 2.5 microns in diameter that can cause serious cardiovascular and respiratory problems. The average level measured was 59, comparable to a bad pollution day in Mumbai or Beijing, and some homes were as high as 400. The World Health Organizations considers PM2.5 levels higher than 25 to be unsafe.
In an August 24, 2018 CBS News article, Memo Cedeño Laurent of Harvard Chan School, said he was surprised to find levels of pollution that high in some of the homes. “People think that problems finish once the water goes away, but that’s when they start for many people.”
Gina McCarthy, director of the Chan School’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-Change), added that many people think going indoors is a way of escaping air pollution. “I don’t think people realize just how much of our world is indoors,” McCarthy said. “They think that if there is an air pollution outside they’ll just go inside, as if we have bottled air inside.”
Read the CBS News article: Toxic homes: The invisible threat after Hurricane Harvey