CLEVELAND — The hazy skies around Northeast Ohio are disrupting more than the sunlight. An air quality advisory has been upending outdoor activities and events.
Wednesday morning, University Circle Inc. decided to postpone Wade Oval Wednesday for the safety of staff, performers and guests. The outdoor event typically draws swarms of visitors in the summer to enjoy food, vendors and live music.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks, honestly. As soon as I heard that, I called the team, and I’m like, ‘Stop whatever you’re doing. Stop it,’” said Tiwanna Scott-Williams, the owner of PearlFlower Catering.
The PearlFlower team had already begun filling hundreds of condiment cups with cilantro-lime aioli and prepping ingredients to make rice bowls. Scott-Williams said Wednesday’s scheduled reggae performer usually attracts the largest crowd of the summer concert series, and she had anticipated selling hundreds of bowls.
“It’s always a toss-up,” she said of the outdoor event. “But usually, our biggest concern is rain.”
An air quality alert for Northeast Ohio cautioned that Canadian wildfire smoke was causing “very unhealthy” conditions outdoors. NOACA said members of the general public may experience health effects, with more serious effects for sensitive groups.
“The most important thing is people are safe. I’m glad they canceled it if there was a risk for people to be out,” Scott-Williams said.
Event cancellations were a source of disappointment for some. Bryan Hagar planned to spend his birthday at the Wade Oval Wednesday concert.
“It was my plan, but the air quality,” Hagar said, gesturing to the hazy skies.
Cortez Carter and Akera Hightower were visiting Northeast Ohio from Kansas City for a dance competition and hadn’t anticipated the air quality issues.
“When we were coming down to land, we couldn’t even see the landing spot because that’s how foggy it was,” Carter said. “Normally, you look out the window, and you see the plane landing [but there were] just clouds; that’s all it was.”
Scott-Williams took a page out of PearlFlower’s pandemic playbook by offering a pop-up online sale of the rice bowls intended for Wade Oval Wednesday. The team will be boxing up family-sized portions of the meals with salad and rolls for pickup at their Oakwood Village kitchen. You can find more information by clicking here.
Air quality was not one of the things I thought would come into play. Now we have another thing on the list of global disasters to prepare for,” Scott-Williams said.
PearlFlower will be back at Wade Oval Wednesday on July 19. Carlos Jones (+), the reggae performance scheduled for Wednesday, will be postponed until August 23 for an End of Summer Bash on the Oval. Read more about the event series here.
RELATED:
What to know about today's Air Quality Alert
Here's what's closed today in Northeast Ohio due to 'very unhealthy' air quality
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
