By Thursday, the lobby of Shutters on the Beach, a luxury oceanfront hotel in Santa Monica usually packed with tourists and entertainment professionals, had been evacuated due to a raging wildfire that had scorched thousands of acres. It became a shelter for Los Angeles residents. The entire neighborhood is reduced to ashes.
In the center of one table was something you probably haven't seen in the Shutters lobby before: a portable plastic goldfish tank. “It's my daughter's,” said Kevin Foshee, 48. Mr. Fossey and his wife, Olivia Barth, 45, had taken refuge in a hotel in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, shortly after a fire broke out near their home in Malibu. .
Suddenly, an evacuation warning was issued. All the phones in the lobby screamed in unison, and the young children were frightened and began crying inconsolably. People realized it was a false alarm and put their phones away a second later.
More than 100,000 people are under evacuation orders as the fire spreads, and similar scenes are unfolding at other hotels in Los Angeles. IHG, which owns the InterContinental, Regent and Holiday Inn chains, said 19 of its hotels in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas were accepting evacuees.
The Palisades fire, which has been raging since Tuesday and is the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history, has ravaged a neighborhood full of wealthy mansions and middle-class homes that have been owned for generations. Now they all need a place to stay.
Many evacuees turned to the Palisades WhatsApp group, which grew from a few hundred members to more than 1,000 members in just a few days. As the fire spread, photos, news, evacuation tips, hotel discount codes, pet policies, and more were posted rapidly.
The midcentury modern Beverly Hilton Hotel, towering over the lawns and gardens of Beverly Hills, some 11 miles from the ash-covered Pacific Palisades, ran out of parking on Wednesday as evacuees poured in. Guests had to park in a separate parking lot. Go 1 mile south and take the shuttle back.
In the lobby of the hotel, which regularly hosts glitzy events like the recent Golden Globe Awards, guests in tracksuits struggled with children, pets and hastily packed roll-aboards.
Many of the guests were already acquaintances from the neighborhood, and there was a sense of resigned intimacy as they exchanged stories. “You can tell right away if someone is a fire evacuee by whether they're wearing sweats or if they have a dog with them,” said photographer Sasha Young, 34. “Everyone I talked to said the same thing: We didn't take enough.”
The Hotel June, a boutique hotel with a 1950s hipster vibe a mile north of Los Angeles International Airport, was offering rooms to evacuees for $125 a night.
“We were on our way back to Palisades from the airport when we found out about the evacuation,” said Julia Morandi, 73, a retired science educator who lives in the Palisades-Highland neighborhood. “When we checked in, they could tell we were stressed, so the manager gave us a drink ticket and said, 'We care about our neighbors.' I did.”
Hotels are also assisting travelers caught up in the disruption, helping arrange flights home (airports were operating normally as of Friday) and waiving cancellation fees. A Shutters spokeswoman said guests included domestic and international tourists, but few displaced Angelenos were seen Thursday. The heated outdoor pool, which overlooks the ocean and is usually crowded with sunbathers, was completely deserted due to hazardous air quality.
“I think I'm one of the only tourists here,” said Pavel Francouz, 34, a hockey scout who came to Los Angeles from the Czech Republic for a conference Tuesday before the fire broke out. Ta.
“It's a strange thing to be a tourist,” he said of eerily empty beaches and hotel lobbies filled with crying children, families, dogs and suitcases. “I can't imagine how these guys would feel,” he said, adding, “I'm ready to go home.”
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