The Illawarra and Shoalhaven escaped the severe thunderstorms forecast for other parts of the state last night, but copped another fine covering of dust.
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Although air quality fell short of triggering a health warning, like the dust storm on Wednesday, February 13, it did a number on cars housed in the open, as well as uncovered pools.
Mike Ali, of My Car Wash in Bomaderry, said they had been staying open late to cope with the extra business.
“All of our self serves have been pretty flat out – it’s basically been all week, because we can only do so many,” he said.
“I’d guess there’s 10-20,00 cars in the area, and we can only tackle 400-500, per week, per site.
“We really appreciate the patience of most of our customers, we’ve been going past our usual closing time and trying to cater to every customer we can.”
However, Opal Car Wash operator Guri Singh said his business had seen a small number of extra customers from the dust storms.
“(There has been a) slight increase of people coming in with dust, maybe ten per cent,” he said.
Cameron Boxsell, of Aqua Service, said the dust had been a daily issue for the past couple of weeks.
“We’ve got people complaining about the dust every day,” he said.
“Even our own servicemen doing regular pool cleans say every pool is full of dust – and there looks to be more coming.
“It’s certainly a problem.”
Mr Boxsell said it was important to keep on top of the dust – but if you don’t fancy vacuuming your pool for hours on end, a pool cover is the only option for prevention.
“It’s really the only thing you can do,” he said.
“(Once it’s there) you’ve got to vacuum your pool and you may have to do it repeatedly, because the dust is so fine it can make its way through the filter and back in.
“You can get clarifiers for pools, which definitely helps.”
