Smoke from wildfires, a fact of life in the West, catch outdoor workers off guard in the East

The hazardous haze from Canada’s wildfires is taking its toll on outdoor workers along the Eastern U.S. who carried on with their daily jobs even as dystopian orange skies forced the cancelation of sports events, school field trips and Broadway plays. Delivery workers, construction workers, railroad and airport employees, farm laborers and others and faced risks with echoes of the pandemic and familiar to their counterparts in the West Coast. But smoky skies were a new threat in the East Coast, catching many workers and employers by surprise and uncertain about what to do. Some left their jobs in the middle of the day, unable to carry on as the air quality worsened. Most pushed through in the hopes the crisis would quickly pass with little lasting damage.