The lobby of Shutters on the Beach, the luxury oceanfront hotel in Santa Monica that is usually packed with tourists and entertainment professionals, turned into a shelter Thursday for Los Angeles residents displaced by the raging wildfires that have burned thousands of acres and leveled . whole neighborhoods in ashes.
In the middle of a table sat something that probably has never been in the Shutters lobby before: a portable plastic goldfish tank. “It’s my daughter’s,” said Kevin Fossee, 48. Mr. Fossee and his wife, Olivia Barth, 45, had evacuated the hotel Tuesday afternoon shortly after the fire broke out in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles near at their home in Malibu. .
Suddenly, an evacuation notice came. Every phone in the lobby immediately rang, startling the small children who began to cry inconsolably. People put their phones down a second later when they realized it was a false alarm.
Similar scenes have unfolded at other Los Angeles hotels as fires spread and the number of people ordered to evacuate exceeds 100,000. IHG, which includes the Intercontinental, Regent and Holiday Inn chains, said 19 of its hotels in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas are hosting displaced people.
The Palisades fire, which has been raging since Tuesday and has become the deadliest in Los Angeles history, has ripped through neighborhoods filled with mansions owned by the wealthy as well as homes of middle-class families who have owned them for generations. Now everyone needs places to stay.
Many evacuees turned to a Palisades WhatsApp group that within days grew from a few hundred to over 1,000 members. Photos, news, advice on where to evacuate, hotel discount codes and pet policies were posted with increasing speed as the fires spread.
At the midcentury modern Beverly Hilton Hotel, which towers over the lawns and gardens of Beverly Hills, seven miles and a world away from the Pacific Palisades ashes, parking ran out Wednesday as evacuees piled in. Visitors had to park in another lot a mile south and take a bus back.
In the hotel lobby, which regularly hosts glitzy events such as the recent Golden Globe Awards, guests in workout clothes battle children, pets and hastily packed roll-aboards.
Many of the guests were already familiar with each other from their neighborhoods and there was a resigned familiarity as stories were exchanged. “You can tell right away if someone is a firefighter by whether they’re wearing sweats 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 June, a boutique hotel with a 1950s hipster vibe a mile north of Los Angeles International Airport, offered rooms to evacuees for $125 a night.
“We were heading home to Palisades from the airport when we heard about the evacuations,” said Julia Moradi, 73, a retired science teacher 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’re taking care of our neighbors.’
Hotels are also helping tourists caught up in the chaos, helping them make arrangements to fly home (as of Friday, the airport was operating normally) and waiving cancellation fees. A Shutters spokesman said its visitors include domestic and international tourists, but on Thursday, few could be identified among the displaced Angelenos. The heated outdoor pool that overlooks the ocean and is usually surrounded by sunbathers was completely deserted due to the dangerous 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 meeting Tuesday before the fires were lit.
“It’s weird being a tourist,” he said, describing the eerily empty beaches and hotel lobby filled with children, families, dogs and crying suitcases. “I can’t imagine what it would be like for those people,” she said, adding, “I’m ready to go home.”
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