‘Nothing like before’: El Pasoans say this week’s dust storm is one of ‘the worst’

A dust storm with strong hues of orange that El Pasoans say resembled the atmosphere of Mars, took over the region this week, creating a health hazard for the community.

"It was like being on another planet, you know? I mean, I've seen stuff like it before, even worse here. But, the worst I've seen in a long time for sure," said UTEP student Noah Ozer. "It was like being on Mars, wasn't it? It was pretty spectacular and scary."

An El Paso native said she was very surprised when she saw the color of the air on Thursday.

"I've lived here my whole life, and I've never seen it get that dark outside," she said. "It was like yellow and orange and I even told my husband, I've never seen it look like that outside."

ABC-7 spoke with Dr. Gabriel Ibarra-Mejia, a physician-researcher at UTEP who specializes in environmental exposures to health.

He said the air quality index almost reached 500, which he says is "extremely hazardous."

"In the last 10 days, we have the highest levels of dust that we have had probably in the last 10 years," he said. "So, yes, it was a bit surprising."

Ibarra-Mejia says the dust storm is a perfect combination of the drought, the strong wind systems coming through and the dry soil with no vegetation, causing the sand and dust to uplift easily.

"This morning I already got up and I already dusted everything, vacuumed, even though I know it's pointless because we're just going to have winds again this afternoon," she said. "We want to be able to enjoy being outside, and with these repeating winds, it just limits our outdoor activities."

A Fabens High School teacher told ABC-7 he's lived in El Paso for over 12 years and has never seen such dark weather here.

"I was thinking right now it's almost like a kind of mad Max environment, and the air was nasty coming in every crack in the house... it was uncanny weather," said Justin Stone.

The UTEP researcher said with his equipment, his team's sensors detected particles of 2.5 micrometers or less, such as from vehicle emission or construction sites, as well as particles of 10 micrometers of less, like sand.

"There was others, you know, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide and other things," Ibarra-Mejia said. "But our concern is a lot of things that we cannot detect with these."

He said the dust storm could've also carried heavy metals, fungi spores and mold.

"I remember that we had issues here with lead and arsenic in the past," the researcher said.

Ibarra-Mejia said he speculates that the dust had more minerals than usual that would cause the orange-red hue, when normally the color of the dust is more gray-white.

"I'm just speculating that it has more iron in it," he said. "And that means again, that it's the erosion is deeper and more widespread."

El Pasoans are feeling the effects from all the contaminants in the air.

"I do have a scratchy throat and a congested, kind of congested sinuses today," said Stone.

"My allergies got really bad, I was already on my second allergy pill of the day, and I had an exam the next day," said Damian Gallegos, another UTEP student. "So like my last minute studying was kind of impaired due to that dust storm, so, I don't really like that."

Another UTEP student it was hard to breathe outside.

"You walk out there, you get a dust full of mouthful of dust. You're trying to breathe? You couldn't really breathe," said Brian Gill. "This one was actually pretty bad. I lived in other areas. I would say this one was probably one of the worst storms I've ever been through."

One student says, he's seen worse.

"So I've been to Kuwait and they have some of the worst sandstorms," said Adeokla Adefelu, who's originally from Nigeria. "Yesterday it kind of reminded me of the good old days."