Los Angeles Evacuations Rise To 180,000 As Fires Keep Burning

(MENAFN- Live Mint) (Bloomberg) -- The deadly fires in Los Angeles are forcing tens of thousands more residents from their homes as firefighters struggle to bring the blazes under control.

Almost 180,000 people are under evacuation orders, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a briefing Thursday. That's up from more than 100,000 the day before. The death toll stood at five as of Wednesday, but Luna said it would take time to compile a final count given the massive scale of the destruction.

The evacuations forced many Angelenos to seek refuge in shelters, hotel rooms, second homes or on the couch with friends and relatives. In Hollywood, surreal street scenes played out as masked people dragged their luggage down Fountain Avenue. Some residents walked their dogs on Santa Monica Boulevard just like any other evening while others frantically tried to leave the area.

Hotels were at capacity in Beverly Hills and other parts of the second-largest US city, in many cases filled with evacuees, local media reported. At a Marriott hotel, one man said he'd been driving along Wilshire Boulevard, stopping randomly at hotels to see if they had rooms. He was repeatedly told no.

Uber and Lyft were offering free rides for evacuees traveling to evacuation sites. And Airbnb was offering free temporary emergency housing options for people displaced from the fire.

In Pacific Palisades, one of the hardest-hit areas, Robyn Johnson fled on foot.

The retired teacher walked 20 minutes through smoke-filled streets from her Pacific Palisades apartment to Will Rogers State Beach after mandatory evacuation orders were issued Tuesday. Along the way, she ran into California Governor Gavin Newsom at a command post, and he helped her find emergency contacts before she got transportation to a shelter in Westwood.

“The apocalyptic walk from my apartment to the command post - I'll carry that with me forever,” Johnson said, recalling gridlocked traffic and frantic neighbors piling into cars.

“I was probably one of the rare people in the Palisades who didn't have transportation or a place to go,” she said, adding that she's on a fixed income and doesn't own a car.

Residents fleeing the rapidly advancing fire in the Palisades abandoned their cars on congested roads, obstructing access for emergency vehicles. To clear a way through, authorities used bulldozers to move the deserted automobiles.

The abandoned vehicles underscored the desperation of many people in Los Angeles, which is preparing for mass influxes of tourists when it hosts the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics.

The infernos also touched celebrities. Actress Mandy Moore said Wednesday on Instagram that she and her family, dog and cats evacuated their Altadena home to a friend's house. She expressed grief over the loss of her children's school, favorite restaurants, and the devastation experienced by friends and loved ones.

“Absolutely numb,” she posted.“Our community is broken but we will be here to rebuild together.”

It was the first evacuation in decades for Peggy Holter, an award-winning TV news producer who lives in Pacific Palisades. She fled Tuesday evening from a situation she described as significantly more harrowing than her last forced escape, which was in 1978 when she'd just moved to the area and was pregnant.

There's only one way out along the gridlocked Pacific Coast Highway, and she knew it wouldn't be a quick route.
She grabbed some cosmetics, medications and three days of underwear.

She left everything else behind.

“This morning I woke up and I thought about all of my photo albums and all of my Emmys and all that stuff, which are still there,” she said by phone from a friend's home in the Silverlake district where she's staying.“I didn't bother with any of it. I just couldn't imagine never coming back home.”

Other residents left before they were ordered to evacuate, booking rooms in Palm Springs or retreating to second homes in Joshua Tree.

Janaina Devieira, who lives in Benedict Canyon east of the mandatory evacuation area, decided Wednesday morning to retreat to her second home near Pioneertown, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Los Angeles. She said she'd been talking to friends who lost their houses.

“This is apocalyptic,” Devieira said.“I feel so sad for so many families that don't have insurance and lost everything in the wildlife. It's like a scene from The Terminator.”

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