At the beginning of August, we put hit pause and told the highly trained professionals who conduct our water and air quality tests  as well as our residential mold inspectors to go home and prepare their homes and families for what was at the time Tropical Storm Isaias, which was predicted to strengthen and become a hurricane.  

Hurricane Isaias

We were very fortunate, the storm stayed just off our coast. It kicked up the surf quite impressively and blustered its way north along the coast, eventually becoming a Category 1 hurricane. 

The folks in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina were not as lucky. That’s where Hurricane Isaias went ashore, it’s hurricane force winds and the tornadoes it spawned knocking out power, taking down trees and claiming the lives of 5 people. From there, the storm continued heading north. It was rated a tropical storm when it hit the Northeast, but that was enough to do serous damage and leave hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power. 

Hurricane Laura 

The Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas braced for not one but two storms a few weeks later. Hurricane Marco jumped ahead of Laura, which formed first and moved ashore as a tropical storm near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Aug. 24. 

Hurricane Laura made landfall in the early hours of Aug. 27 as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane. The storm left catastrophic damage in its wake, devastating the town of Lake Charles, Louisiana. 

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center did an amazing job at predicting the location and timing of Laura’s assault on the coast, allowing time for people to evacuate. Many lives were saved, but there was nothing that could be done to save the homes and businesses that they had left behind. 

What does all of this have to do with indoor air quality, home allergen testing and asbestos inspections? Nothing, really. All of us at AirMD are just feeling very fortunate. If you are feeling fortunate today, too, you might want to take a minute to think about those who are not faring as well and make a donation to a worthy nonprofit that can help them.

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Some of the residential mold inspectors at AirMD, which provides comprehensive water quality testing and indoor air quality assessments in West Palm Beach and all of South Florida, are looking forward to getting away for a little skiing this winter. And it seems like almost everyone at our environmental testing company in Boca Raton is expecting a visit from friends or relatives who live in colder climes.

This is one of the busiest travel times of the year. If you’re among the millions of Americans who will be heading to the airport sometime soon, you may want to pay attention to a study released in September by the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center and DietDetective.com.

Airline Water Quality Testing

You wouldn’t think something like this would be necessary, but since 2011, airlines have been required to provide passengers and flight crew with safe drinking water under the federal government’s Aircraft Drinking Water Rule (ADWR). Unfortunately, the Airline Water Study 2019 reveals that you can’t rely on the quality of the drinking water when you fly. The quality varies by airline, but, according to the report, many airlines have possibly provided passengers with unhealthy water.

The study ranked 11 major and 12 regional airlines primarily based on the quality of water they provided onboard their flights. Criteria included things like:

• fleet size
• ADWR violations
• positive E. coli water sample reports
• positive coliform water sample reports
• cooperation in providing answers to water-quality questions

“Alaska Airlines and Allegiant win the top spot with the safest water in the sky, and Hawaiian Airlines finishes No. 2,” says Charles Platkin, PhD, JD, MPH, the editor of DietDetective.com and the executive director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center. The airlines with the worst scores are JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, the study shows.

To be on the safe side, the experts behind the study recommend that you:

• NEVER drink any water on a flight that isn’t in a sealed bottle
• Do not drink coffee or tea onboard
• Do not wash your hands in the bathroom; bring hand-sanitizer with you instead.

Here at AirMD, a South Florida air quality and water testing company where our experts understand just how disturbing the results of the study are, we’re not going to let concerns about water quality testing stop us from hitting the slopes and we hope you don’t let it stop you from traveling this winter. We just plan on taking our own water bottles with us.

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