Even far from the fires, the air smelled like smoke and ash flakes covered cars and backyards.
The air quality around the Bay
People should avoid going outside at all, especially to exercise, while the air quality is in the unhealthy range, said Dr. Afif El-Hasan, a lung health specialist in Orange County. He said the smoke could also make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus if they were infected.
“Anything that weakens the lungs, like really bad air, which causes the lungs to lose some of their ability to fight infection, is going to be an issue,” Dr. El-Hasan said. “In theory, breathing in a lot of bad air can make you more susceptible to a more serious Covid illness.”
The double risk of dangerous air and the coronavirus poses a dilemma, Dr. El-Hasan said, making decisions for evacuees even more difficult.
Back in Santa Cruz, Ms. Lyons and Mr. Phillips, her boyfriend, were planning their next move. Mr. Phillips, 65, called one hotel after another, as far away as Monterey, but they all said the same thing: Sorry, we’re full.
He packed his guitars, and she brought pet supplies and DVDs of her daughter’s childhood. The couple said they will be living out of their cars for the foreseeable future.
Mr. Phillips, who retired from his job with a Bay Area air quality agency in April, said the past few months have been far from the easy life he had hoped for.
“I retired into the pandemic, and now homelessness,” he said.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio and Lucy Tompkins contributed reporting from New York.