Beginning yesterday and expected to continue throughout today before beginning to ease tomorrow, Southern California has been placed under a weather advisory due to extreme winds reaching up to 100 mph in some places according to the Weather Channel, a television channel which provides forecasts and coverage of weather nationally.
The Los Angeles Times labeled the winds as the “most destructive winds since 2011” as areas within L.A. such as the Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica and Malibu have been placed under evacuation orders due to developed fires. Others including West Covina have experienced power outages and air quality alerts effective until 5:00 p.m.. Despite concerns arising due to the weather, all schools in the district remain open.
The San Gabriel Valley mountains experienced winds up to 84 mph last night, according to an article by the central and eastern San Gabriel Valley newspaper the San Gabriel Tribune, that affected local communities and some West Covina High School students. Senior Ricardo Jacobo remained home from school after a tree knocked over from extreme winds fell on his car. Following this he expressed frustration with his circumstance and the district’s choice to remain open.
“Me and my mom went out to see at like, 7:30 in the morning and it was on my car. It’s just hard because now there’s a whole school day I missed out on and I have no form of transportation. It seems at this point like, nothing will ever make them care, like they sent you out in knee-deep water last year and now these high winds and they don’t really care,” said Jacobo.
Although Baldwin Park, Monrovia, Bonita, and Glendora school districts closed for the day, Principal Charles Park explained that the decision to remain open was made based on the guidance of officials from the county.
“There’s neighboring schools that have closed for the day. We remain open and that is with the guidance from the county and just assessing what we have in front of us. We have power, it’s a safe place to be for our students, and we want to continue on with the day,” said Park.
In a similar philosophy, all outdoor athletic activity has been canceled for the day. Athletic Director Randy Bell explained that the decision to do so was based on the currently dangerous levels from the air quality index (AIQ) and that the announcement of cancellation was made towards noon due to officials having to monitor developing circumstances.
“When days like this happen and there’s wonderment about it from the beginning…We deal with it like, sometimes it’s we will wait and see a little longer in the day and see if we have to cancel or if we are viable based on the markers that we use AIQ,air quality index,or temperatures or wet globe thermometer… Probably by mid-morning today we felt the need to reach out to the district level. Dr. Park reached out to Dr. Rose at the district and I think the call was made,” said Bell.
Park advises the community to continue to stay informed with developing circumstances.
“I would definitely stay in touch, make sure that parents are checking emails so that if Parent Squares come out from us it will give them updates. In terms of students, check our Instagram, check the Insight Instagram, just have any kind of news information that we will send out,” said Park.
