Last Burn Season: Hester’s Story
From a hospital bed in Belle Glade, Florida, 53-year old Hester Harrell breathes slowly and deliberately. She’s no stranger to the confinement of these walls, where complications from gastroparesis, diabetes and asthma have frequently landed her over the years.
As a Belle Glade native, Hester has lived in the “tri-city area,” encompassing Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay, most of her life. It’s a community she loves. She raised her children here and continues to live in Pahokee with her daughter and two grandchildren.
Yet she feels certain there are specific factors that worsen her conditions. With frustration, she describes the black smoke that wafts over the Glades communities six to eight months of the year as almost half a million acres of sugarcane is burned before harvest. There are days when she can’t put her emergency inhaler down. She carries it with her everywhere, using it as often as five times a day to keep her asthma at bay. One granddaughter is now plagued by the same breathing condition.