Follow up. Continuous coverage Wildfires in Southern California.
The lobby of Shutters on the beachA luxury oceanfront hotel in Santa Monica, usually packed with tourists and leisure professionals, had by Thursday turned into a shelter for Los Angeles residents displaced by the wildfires that ravaged the area. Thousands of acres of land were engulfed and entire neighborhoods were reduced to ashes.
In the center of a table sat something that might never have been in a Shutter lobby before: a portable plastic goldfish tank. “That’s my daughter,” said 48-year-old Kevin Fossey. Mr. Fauci and his wife, Olivia Barth, 45, left the hotel Tuesday evening shortly after the fire broke out near their Malibu home in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. .
Suddenly, there was an evacuation alert. Every phone in the lobby squealed at once, startling the small children who began to cry uncontrollably. People put their phones away a second later when they realized it was a false alarm.
Similar scenes are unfolding at other hotels in Los Angeles as the fire spreads and crowds increase. Grows above 100,000.. IHG, which includes the InterContinental, Regent and Holiday Inn chains, said 19 of its hotels in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas were accommodating the evacuees.
The Palisades fire, which has been Infuriated There is more from Tuesday It became the most destructive in Los Angeles history.a neighborhood filled with mansions owned by the wealthy as well as homes of middle-class families who have owned them for generations. Now they all need places to live.
Many of the evacuees turned to a Palisades WhatsApp group that has grown from a few hundred to 1,000 members in just a few days. Photos, news, evacuation tips, hotel discount codes and pet policies posted quickly as the fire spread. was going
In mid-century modern Beverly Hilton The hotel, which sits on the lawns and gardens of Beverly Hills, seven miles from the ash-laden Pacific Palisades, ran out of parking Wednesday as evacuees piled up. Guests had to park in another lot about a mile to the south. Shuttle back.
In the lobby of the hotel, which regularly hosts glamorous events like the recent Golden Globe Awards, guests in workout clothes wrestle with children, pets and hastily packed roll ships.
Many of the guests already knew each other from their neighborhoods, and there was a resigned intimacy between them as they traded stories. “You can tell right away if someone is going to put out a fire if they’re sweaty or have a dog with them,” said Sasha Young, 34, a photographer. “Everybody I’ve talked to says the same thing: We didn’t get enough.”
Hotel JuneA boutique hotel with a 1950s hipster vibe a mile north of Los Angeles International Airport was offering evacuation rooms for $125 a night.
“We were on our way home from the airport to Palisades when we found out about the evacuation,” said Julia Morandi, 73, a retired science educator who lives in the Palisades Highlands neighborhood. “When we checked in, they could see we were stressed, so the manager gave us drink tickets and said, ‘We care about our neighbors.'”
Hotels are helping tourists caught in the chaos, helping them make arrangements to get home (as of Friday, the airport is back to normal was working in accordance with) and waive the cancellation fee. A Shutters spokeswoman said its guests included domestic and international tourists, but some of the Angelenos who were displaced Thursday. can be seen. The heated outdoor pool that overlooks the ocean and is usually surrounded by sunshine was completely deserted due to the dangerous air quality.
“I feel like I’m one of the only tourists here,” said Pavel Francos, 34, a hockey scout who came to Los Angeles from the Czech Republic for a meeting Tuesday before the fire.
“It’s weird being a tourist,” he said, describing the starkly empty beaches and hotel lobbies filled with crying children, families, dogs and suitcases. “I can’t imagine how these people must feel,” he said, “I’m ready to go home.”
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