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People ride bikes on Sixth Avenue through haze and smoke from wildfires in Canada blanketing New York City, June 7, 2023.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Google It is telling its employees on the East Coast to stay indoors as wildfire smoke fills the air in New York and other major cities.
The company’s New York website wrote in a note to workers in the area that air quality in many parts of the region has reached “unhealthy” levels, citing the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. In New York, most employees were expected to work from physical offices at least three days a week.
According to the note, obtained by CNBC, “We advise Google employees to work from home if possible, and to limit their exposure to outside air.” “The grandstands across our campus in New York will remain closed today.”
According to NBC, the company has issued advisory notices to workers in the Detroit area; Washington, D.C.; Reston, Virginia Pittsburgh. and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. In Canada, which is on track to experience its worst wildfire season on record, Google has notified employees in the Ontario cities of Toronto and Waterloo.
New York Mayor Eric Adams released a permit On Wednesday all New Yorkers urged to limit outdoor activity, and airports postponed flights as smoke from Canada’s wildfires engulfed surrounding areas.
Google has dealt with this issue in the recent past.
In 2020, the company’s home state of California experienced serious air quality problems for about a month as a result of the record-breaking wildfires that burned across the state. Many people at Google and across the tech industry were already working from home because it was the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Google created a so-called “go” link that directs employees to internal documents and information about wildfires and air filtration. It released similar resources during the wildfires in 2020. Typically, the company will have “go” links for things like products, employee equipment, office information, and some social causes.
The memo on Wednesday advised employees to stay home to “avoid vigorous physical activity” and to run air conditioners with clean filters. Site leaders reassured those already working on site that the campus HVAC and air filtration systems “maintain a high quality of air inside our offices even in these conditions.”
He watches: The FAA is temporarily suspending all flights to LaGuardia due to limited visibility from the smoke
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