New York City has been blanketed by a thick cloud of smoke since July 2021.
Smoke in New York has been a regular occurrence over the last year. The city was covered in a cloud of grey smoke for the first time on July 27th, 2021, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he would be shuttering all of the state’s prisons. The announcement came after two inmates escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY on June 6th, which is about 40 miles from the Canadian border.
Inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped after cutting through steel pipes and then climbing through a manhole to freedom. Matt was shot dead by police on June 26th after being spotted near a cabin he broke into. Sweat was captured two days later, and Cuomo made his decision shortly thereafter.
