"Every year, farmers in South Florida set fire to more than 400,000 acres of sugarcane fields pre-harvest, creating a “black snow” of ash and soot that falls on the low-income communities nearby."
"Christine Louis-Jeune knew she was home when she saw ash falling from the sky and onto her windshield.
She hadn’t been back to her central Florida hometown of Belle Glade in six months. She was both exhausted after a six-plus hour drive from Tallahassee and excited to tell her parents about her first semester at Florida A&M University.
But as she saw the dark clouds of smoke, all she could think about was how to get out of the car without getting ash on her clothes or in her lungs. She looked for extra masks in her glove compartment. She began to worry about her family, and hoped they were safely at home with all the windows shut.
Her homecoming had been darkened by what Belle Glade residents call “black snow” —ash and soot that fall on the low-income communities south of Lake Okeechobee (also known as the Glades) during the six-month sugarcane burning season."
Michelle Mairena and Kyndall Hubbard report for Youthcast Media Group October 19, 2023.
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