At Los Angeles emergency shelters, wildfire evacuees turn to community help amid uncertainty
Reporting from LOS ANGELES
Ash trickled down from a gray sky and the smell of smoke lingered in the air today as Angelenos made phone calls to loved ones.
The common refrain: We’re OK. We’re safe. We’re at a shelter.
The evacuees paced outside the grounds of the Westwood Recreation Center in West Los Angeles today. It is one of four makeshift spaces for wildfire evacuees run by the Red Cross in the affected areas.
“The devastation, the destruction, I never thought this would happen,” said Johnnie Burman, 64, an evacuee from Santa Monica who went to the shelter in hope of finding his elderly neighbor and friend.
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Aerial view of wildfire destruction in Pacific Palisades
Images reveal the extent of destroyed homes in the Pacific Palisades yesterday as multiple wildfires, fueled by intense Santa Ana winds, continue to burn across Los Angeles County.
‘Entirely foreseeable’: The L.A. fires are the worst-case scenario experts feared
For the Los Angeles area, the recent string of wildfires represents a worst-case scenario — unusually powerful and prolonged Santa Ana winds struck after months without significant rain. But the steep consequences of the blazes are not a surprise, according to an NBC News review of after-action reports following previous fires, wildfire risk maps, public meetings about wildfire risk and interviews with fire experts.
“Entirely foreseeable,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College.
“We have been building homes deep into the fire zones. We know they’re fire zones, we know they’re dangerous, and yet City Hall and county government has constantly greenlit development in places of greater and greater risks,” Miller said. “All of the factors you don’t want to see combined combined.”
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Surviving temple now a ‘refuge for the entire community’
Reporting from Pacific Palisades
Amid the wide destruction of the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, there were symbols of hope. One of them was a temple still standing amid the destruction. It’s a place I know well.
