Well, imagine our shock when we woke on the morning of Thursday March 10th to discover that all school’s in Mexico City had been closed due to extreme weather!?!  The picture at the top is what we saw when we opened the curtain in the morning…  Was this a joke??  I’m sure that I read the email officially announcing the school closure fifty times before I had to just believe it.  And I was curious about the noticeable lack of traffic at this time in the morning; this street outside our hotel room is usually noisy and busy most hours of the day.  Now, the day before had been pretty windy with some bursts of rain throughout the day – actually Rosie and I got caught in a downpour while out for our walk, but being the hardy Canadian-first that I am, I anticipated some weather coming and wore Aaron’s raincoat when we went out.

We definitely were whipped around by the wind and rain, but it was very invigorating! Rosie was one soaked pooch and always loves her towel-off after a rainy walk!  She slept really well after that!  Didn’t think much about the blustery weather til I got to school, the wind blowing but the sun shining.  I’m sure I’ve never witnessed such clucking amongst parents, mostly Mom’s, gathered at school waiting for their kids to be dismissed.  Everyone was very concerned about the weather, behaving like they were under attack!   I was standing outside in the wind with the kids waiting for Mansell to be finished and was getting all manner of sideways glances from the hens huddled inside keeping their safe distance from the elements (at this point I also noticed that we were the ONLY ones waiting outside!)  Meanwhile, our little Georgian Bay Sailors were loving the wind and reminiscing about summer!  One of the Mom’s, who is not a native of Mexico, coming from the school and the clucking,  passed by me and commented that they are all freaked out because they NEVER have weather like this and they don’t know what to do with it!!  That same evening a friend texted to wonder if our power was out, as her’s had been flickering on and off in the early evening; nope, we were still with power, but later learned that a large portion of Mexico City were powered down, due to the high winds.  Now interestingly, the winds were only gusting to around 50km/h, but when you’re not used to having winds like these, you don’t build for winds like these.  Was remarkable to me to see billboards swaying significantly in the wind, anchored only by a metal plate on a cement pad at the base.  Of course with this sort of fastening, many of them were just falling right over.   Street lamps were twisting over, bulbs hanging.  Fences around parking lots were blowing out.  Branches were breaking off and some trees were coming down.  Tarps covering piles of dirt in construction sites were ripped off and billowing down roads and up in the air.  One of the Mom’s snapped a pic of the following unexpected hazard on her way home from school on that Wednesday afternoon:

As beautiful as it looks, the winds were wreaking havoc and so it was deemed necessary to keep all the kids home.   As Canadians, we realized that we are pretty weather-resilient; it’s amazing what we put up with in order to get around and get things done – as soon as the plows go through, no matter how many feet of snow have dumped or how badly it’s blowing, we head out.  It’s a rare, treacherous weather day that keeps us home.  Maybe we aren’t too smart afterall – doesn’t seem very bright actually!  But when we have perpetual bad, challenging weather, you have to figure out a way around it so that you can keep living during the half of the year when the weather sucks!!  When you’re used to beautiful days with temps that barely fluctuate from day to day, I can see how a blustery, variable weather day might really bother you.  It struck me as funny the overall reaction, almost like they couldn’t figure out what had angered the gods.  🙂

One weather event that really actually scared me happened at 4 pm yesterday afternoon.  A smog warning was issued by meteorologists;  a Level 2 Environmental Contingency issued by the Mexican government came into effect, an action plan that is designed to reduce the amount of air pollution and includes measures to restrict the use of motor vehicles of a certain age and on certain days.  All vehicles over two years old must have an e-test every 6 months and are held to pretty strict emissions maximum levels.  This Phase 2 Environmental Contingency means that cars with higher emissions ratings will not be allowed to drive and warnings about outdoor activity are put in place.  For the second day in a row, the kids have not been allowed outside at all during the day because of the air pollution rating, which was measured at it’s highest today at 203 (click here to learn about Air Quality Index values)  In one hour it had jumped from 194 to 203!?  I was horrified when I realized how dangerously high that is.  And incensed when I was waiting for the kids after school and noticed parents sitting in their cars with windows up, AC on, cars idling.  Of course, there I am in my car waiting for my kids (car off, windows down of course!)  But still, I too drove today… I suppose it is good news that an Environmental Contingency has not been issued since 1992, when the city basically shutdown for 3 days the air quality was so bad.  And I guess the first step toward a solution is acknowledging that there is indeed a problem. But still, we all need to make this our problem to solve.  It occurred to me that the pollution created here isn’t just affecting here.  The world and it’s systems are intrinsically interconnected.  Our impact in the here and now deeply affects our long-term future globally.  And after today, frankly, I’m a little worried.

High winds and flying trampolines were one “extreme” weather event we sort of chuckled over, but how sad it will be if the kids have to stay home tomorrow because the air is unsafe to breathe.   What’s worse, is knowing that WE, humans, are the cause of this so-called “weather”.