Alexandrians are being urged to stay indoors due to hazardous air quality — again.
A Code Red Air Quality Health Advisory has been issued for the region today, warning of detrimental health impacts due to poor air quality, with outdoor pools and other activities impacted.
As per the issued advisory, the air quality today could pose a serious health risk, particularly to those with breathing and heart ailments, children, and older adults. Residents are encouraged to avoid strenuous outdoor activities, shorten their duration if necessary, or shift them indoors.
The Department of Recreation, Parks, and Cultural Activities (RPCA) has announced that all outdoor pools will be closed for the day. All summer camp activities have been moved indoors today.
In a release, the City of Alexandria urged locals to:
- Avoid strenuous outdoor activities
- Keep outdoor activities short
- Consider moving physical activities indoors or rescheduling them
The release said tomorrow’s (Friday) air quality is projected to be Code Orange — meaning it may be unhealthy for sensitive groups.
The region has hit air quality level Code Maroon and Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) has announced some new precautions for today to minimize exposure to hazardous conditions.
In a release, ACPS said that schools will continue normal operations, but all physical education classes and recess will be held inside. All outdoor field trips have also been rescheduled.
“This step is taken in accordance with the guidance from the National Weather Service to minimize exposure to potentially harmful air conditions,” ACPS said in the alert. “We urge all families and staff members to be cautious and follow the recommended guidelines for limited outdoor exposure on this code Maroon air quality day.”
According to ACPS:
We want to inform you that today we are under a code Maroon for air quality, as advised by the National Weather Advisory for northern Virginia. The well-being of our students and staff is our utmost priority, and we are taking necessary precautions to ensure their safety.
While all schools will continue normal operations at this time, as a precaution and in accordance with ACPS policy, all physical education classes and recess will be held indoors.
In light of the air quality alert, we have decided to reschedule all future outdoor field trips. This step is taken in accordance with the guidance from the National Weather Service to minimize exposure to potentially harmful air conditions.
We urge all families and staff members to be cautious and follow the recommended guidelines for limited outdoor exposure on this code Maroon air quality day.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
Sincerely,
Marcia Jackson, Ed.D.
Chief of Student Services and Equity
The City of Alexandria also reiterated an earlier warning for locals to keep outdoor activities brief and avoid strenuous activities.
**Air Quality Index (AQI) Update for Thursday, June 8**
As the City continues to monitor the unhealthy air quality in our region due to the wildfires in Canada, please follow the guidelines below to ensure your safety.
Stay tuned: https://t.co/V7J7M2TrSP. pic.twitter.com/RwaFnRlRqx
— AlexandriaVAGov (@AlexandriaVAGov) June 8, 2023
The Alexandria Library also announced that outdoor events may be canceled or rescheduled due to the smokey conditions.
Due to the poor air quality caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires, some outdoor Library events may be canceled, rescheduled, or moved. Check our calendar before attending events during the next few days for the most up-to-date programming information. https://t.co/fvXnMupG2M pic.twitter.com/GPHdj6WlyF
— Alexandria Library (@alexlibraryva) June 8, 2023
If you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty hazy outside.
Smoke from wildfires in Canada has been working down the East Coast, spurring many localities to issue air quality alerts.
The City of Alexandria said the city’s air quality is currently at red or purple due to unhealthy air pollutants.
**Air Quality Update** Due to smoke from wildfires in Canada, the Air Quality Index (AQI) for Alexandria is RED/PURPLE and is expected to fluctuate. Due to unhealthy air pollutants, ALL residents are advised to limit their time outside. Stay tuned: https://t.co/V7J7M2SU3h pic.twitter.com/8dv5waymd7
— AlexandriaVAGov (@AlexandriaVAGov) June 7, 2023
Today is a Code ORANGE Air Quality alert day for Northern Virginia. Please be careful and avoid strenuous outdoor activities. If you need to travel around Alexandria, consider hopping on your nearest DASH bus, which provides FREE and FREQUENT service all around town. #SpareTheAir pic.twitter.com/DzoFGweVJK
— DASH Bus (@DASHBus) June 7, 2023
For those looking to help filter out the air in their homes, word on the street is there were air purifiers in stock at the Potomac Yard Target as of a couple hours ago.
PSA: there are air purifiers in stock at the Potomac Yard Target.
— Becky Hammer (@beckyhammer) June 7, 2023
Warner Sherman looked great, but his cholesterol was sky high.
Last year, the 62-year-old Alexandria Fire Department captain realized that he needed to take red meat out of his diet. The discovery might’ve just save his life, and was made after Sherman got blood work back from AFD’s health and wellness Station 202 at 212 E. Windsor Avenue in Del Ray. Since transitioning to chicken and turkey, Sherman’s lost 10 pounds and his cholesterol has been cut in half.
“A couple of months ago I had my bloodwork done, and they found my cholesterol was very high,” Sherman said. “Before my lab results, I was just eating steak and hamburgers. I love pork chops, but I had to cut them all out completely.”
For many AFD personnel, their only visit to the doctor is for mandatory work evaluations and physicals twice a year. Those visits allow AFD to track the healthy progress of 300 or so members, and additional offerings are now being included in the health screenings, like ultrasounds to detect cancer, blood testing and inoculations.
AFD started focusing on health and wellness in 2019, with the goal of curbing hypertension rates and improving the physical and mental health of these city employees who perform stressful jobs. But the pandemic in 2020 put the program on hold, as Station 202 became the epicenter for AFD’s covid tests and inoculations. Now with covid in the rearview mirror, the Department is picking up where it left off with its health and wellness program.
The most recently available data shows that there were 35 AFD personnel identified with stage 1 hypertension in 2020, and only 11 the following year, according to an AFD 2020-2021 annual report. The department also saw 13 employees with elevated hemoglobin in 2020, reduced to seven employees in 2021.
“The pandemic made us understand that we can do just about anything,” said Dr. Asra Amin, AFD’s director of occupational health and wellness. “It gave us time to reset, and now we’re back in full swing on how to focus on our members’ mental and physical fitness.”
Awareness is key to improving health outcomes, Amin said. The increased screenings ended up detecting a number of AFD employees with cancerous or precancerous tumors.
Amin said that AFD employees are working with her to develop workout, nutrition and health counseling plans.
“We’re also focusing on mental health,” she said. “We make referrals out to therapists and psychiatrists to help our members.”
Tony Washington, deputy chief of health, safety and risk management, said that every fire station is outfitted with gym and cardio equipment, and that AFD is now looking for personal trainers to work with employees at their respective stations and recruit school.
“You gotta remember back in the day, it was just a bunch of men, mainly men sitting around doing a manly job, and alcohol and smoking was accepted back then,” Washington said. “So there’s been incremental changes in the right direction. Now with the addition of our health and wellness specialists that we have, and the programs that we’re putting in place, we want to make sure that we keep the healthy firefighters healthy that come in, and that we increase the health of those that have been here.”
Alexandria teens at the city’s Sheltercare facility are hosting a car wash today where they’ll discuss the fentanyl issues that have devastated Alexandria.
The community car wash is scheduled to run from 3-5 p.m. today (Tuesday) at Sheltercare (200 S. Whiting Street), a program administered by the Juvenile Detention Commission of Northern Virginia to “provide services and stabilization for youth.”
The city has seen a spike in opioid overdoses in recent years. An Alexandria City High School (ACHS) student was hospitalized after a possible overdose in February and a Wakefield High School student died earlier this year. Another ACHS student died last week and while the cause remains under investigation, the Alexandria Times reported scanner traffic indicated first responders were administering Narcan.
An email from the City of Alexandria said there have been “two suspected fentanyl-related overdoses in school aged youth with one resulting in death.”
City of Alexandria will have free Narcan and fentanyl test strips available at the car wash.
According to the city:
Come out to a community car wash at Shelter Care on May 9 at 200 S. Whiting St. from 3-5 p.m., where youth working to promote recovery we will not only clean cars, but also provide information on the dangers of fentanyl. The City also makes available free Narcan and fentanyl test strips. Narcan is a nasal spray that can save the life of someone having an opioid overdose, and fentanyl test strips detect the presence of the synthetic opioid in a drug before using. Free Narcan will be available at the car wash.
Free Narcan is also available today from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at 2355 Mill Road and Alexandria residents can have Narcan and/or fentanyl test strips mailed to them, by emailing [email protected].
Do you take your yoga with coffee or tea?
By this summer, the Harold family of Alexandria want to add a third business in Old Town — Connect & Sip Cafe at 1320 Prince Street. The proposed cafe would be located next door to their PIES Fitness & Yoga Studio at 1322 Prince Street. If all goes well with the permitting process, they’d like to open up by mid-summer.
“The building is completely gutted right now,” owner Marsha D. Banks-Harold told ALXnow. “Our yoga studio is very unique and that we’re a community, so people come here, they sit before class and each other, check in on how everyone’s family is doing. We’re really about connecting and that’s where the wellness piece comes in. Especially post pandemic where people have been so isolated, it’s really an opportunity for people to come together sit down sip on a cup of tea, or a cup of coffee and really get to know their neighbors.”
The property is located on the corner of Prince Street and N. West Street, directly across the street from popular knitting shop fibre space (1319 Prince Street).
The cafe would sell coffee, tea, small plates of food, pastries and CBD products. The 2,100-square-foot property is envisioned to seat 50 people inside and 12 outside on a 600-square-foot area in the rear of the property. Their proposed operating hours during the week would be from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Wednesday, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Public comments on their special use permit application expire on May 4.
Last October, Banks-Harold, her husband Jefferey and son Gabriel reopened PIES Fitness & Yoga in Old Town. The move came after the family lost the least to their studio at 33 S. Pickett Street, which first opened in 2008. Also last year, the family launched a CBD business, Daydreamers Oasis, and started selling those products in the studio.
The problem with the new Old Town space, Marsha said, is that it lacked a waiting area for people to hang out before and after workouts, crushing the vibe fostered in the previous West End location.
“With the cafe, they’ll have a place to continue those conversations,” she said. “It gets a little crowded in the studio.”
Incidentally, Marsha and Jefferey are both full-time patent supervisors at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. They got married in 1992 in Shiloh Baptist Church, which is about a block away from the building they now own in Old Town.
“This whole part of town has gone through gentrification,” Jefferey said. “Just for us to be able to get back into town and have a place here is special.”
The Alexandria Community Services Board (CSB) is hosting a public meeting next month to receive feedback on how to help Alexandrians with mental illness, substance use dependency and more.
The meeting comes as the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) aims to get funding for programs related to helping with Alexandrians with mental illness, developmental and intellectual disabilities or a substance use dependency.
“This contract provides for the funding of services offered directly or contractually by the CSB in a manner that ensures accountability and quality of care for clients participating in services and implements the mission of supporting individuals by promoting recovery, self-determination and wellness in all aspects of life,” the release said.
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 11, at 6:30 in the DCHS new headquarters at 4850 Mark Center Drive.
Photo via DCHS/Facebook
Need an eyelash extension? A new studio just opened up in Alexandria’s West End that will keep your lashes lush for weeks on end.
April Nickens opened her first Amazing Lash Studio franchise in the West End Village shopping center at 374 S. Pickett Street on March 24.
“I always say super heroes don’t always wear capes,” Nickens told ALXnow. “We wear lashes, too.”
Customers pay between $112 and $140 for membership for two eyelash extension refills every month. It takes about two hours to attach the extensions to individual lashes with a strong adhesive. The lashes stay on for about two weeks. Starting next month, the studio will also offer lash and brow tinting, brow eliminations and brow waxing.
Nickens has eight employees and 12 lash rooms, and says that she has room to grow in the space.
“I wake up every morning feeling beautiful and confident,” Nickens said. “The business part is good. I have a good group of young ladies who work with me, who started with me from the beginning.”
The Alexandria shop is located the former home of PIES Fitness Yoga Studio, (now at 1322 Prince Street). This the first of two franchises that Nickens has opened, and she’s currently shopping around for another location in D.C. and southern Maryland.
“We’re not shopping too aggressively now because we’re getting the Alexandria location up and running,” Nickens said. “We’ll hopefully be opening another studio within the next year.”
Nickens is also the director of operations for a political polling strategy company in D.C. She was drawn to eyelash extensions two years ago after her two daughters gave them as a gift for her 25th wedding anniversary.
“My daughters thought to dress me up with lashes,” she said. “I loved the way it made me feel. Afterwards, when we were looking at a number of franchises, I always came back to the lashes, mainly because of my daughters.”
Amazing Lash was founded in 2010, and is part of WellBiz Brands Inc., a franchise portfolio company operating Amazing Lash Studio, Fitness Together, and Elements Massage. There are more than 250 Amazing Lash franchises around the country, including locations in Ashburn, Woodbridge, Burke, Manassas, Forest and Gainesville.
The store is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. A grand opening will be held on Monday, May 1, at noon.
Healthcare non-profit Neighborhood Health is hitching its wagon to the great West End migration as it joins several city services in a new ‘West End City Hall‘ at the Mark Center.
The building at 4850 Mark Center Drive, officially the Redella S. “Del” Pepper Community Resource Center, will be a new hub for offices like the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) and the Alexandria Health Department.
A lease for Neighborhood Health’s 11,424 square foot wing of the new location is heading to the City Council at the meeting (docket item 11) tomorrow (Saturday). Dr. Basim Khan, executive director of Neighborhood Health, told ALXnow the move will help position Neighborhood Health closer to some of the residents most reliant on the non-profit’s services.
“We’re excited to be part of this move because a lot of residents who need our services are located in and around the West End,” Khan said. “One [of our clinics] is in the DCHS St. Asaph Street building, the other is in the Alexandria Health Department King Street building. Given that those buildings are closing, we’re happy we’ll have space in the Mark Center.”
Khan said Neighborhood Health’s mental illness and dental programs will be moving to the Mark Center location. The new Mark Center location, Khan said, will also allow Neighborhood Health to be a little less constrained. While Neighborhood Health’s other clinics in Alexandria will remain open, Khan said the new locations will let Neighborhood Health expand somewhat and relieve some of the pressure on the overcrowded clinics.
“Over the last several years, we’ve struggled with high demand but limited space,” Khan said. “This gives us a chance to decompress a little bit. That additional space will be helpful to help us provide services.”
Khan said another advantage of the West End location is being adjacent to many other city programs Neighborhood Health patients utilize.
“Many of our patients access DCHS and Health Department services, so my hope with being located is that it improves access to those services and vice versa,” Khan said.
The West End is one of the most densely populated sections of Alexandria and many residences like Southern Towers act as some of the city’s last bastions of market rate affordable housing.
“We do have a lot of demand from patients who live around the Mark Center,” Khan said. “We have a lot of patients from those zip codes and having a site in the West End should be a great benefit.”
Around 1:15 p.m. an Alexandria City High School student was taken to the hospital for a suspected overdose.
Fire department spokeswoman Raytevia Evans confirmed that emergency personnel responded to a possible overdose at the school.
“The call came out around 1:15 [p.m.] for a possible overdose and a request for multi-agency response,” Evans said. “It was a possible overdose.”
Evans said one person, a child, was transported to the hospital, though there’s no additional information about their status.
A student at Wakefield High School in Arlington died last week after an overdose at the school. The Alexandria Police Department warned last year that the city is seeing an increase in teen overdoses linked to pills laced with fentanyl.
