At Los Angeles emergency shelters, wildfire evacuees turn to community help amid uncertainty

LOS ANGELES — Ash trickled down from a gray sky and the smell of smoke lingered in the air Thursday 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 on Thursday. It is one of four makeshift spaces for wildfire evacuees run by the Red Cross in the affected areas.

“Westwood Rec,” as some locals call it, is just off Interstate 405, less than 2 miles outside the immediate evacuation zone around the still-raging Palisades Fire. Over 240 people were being housed there Thursday, a Red Cross spokesperson said. Just two days ago, the number was closer to 20.

“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.

Burman, who has lived in the beachside community for 14 years, is among the many who are under mandatory evacuation orders. As of Thursday afternoon, the city of Santa Monica had imposed a sunrise-to-sunset curfew to help support law enforcement efforts in the area bordering the Palisades Fire.

In his hurry to evacuate, Burman left his cellphone behind in his apartment. A small lantern and a flashlight were among the only items he brought with him, carrying them in an insulated black tote bag.

The centers have become refuges for many whose lives have been upended by the unprecedented fires that continue to ravage the Los Angeles area. With continued uncertainty and more expected winds in the forecast, the spaces have provided a reprieve for people who have had nowhere else to turn — including some who have lost everything.

Along with the influx of people came support volunteers, with many donating items or offering assistance to the Red Cross employees already stationed there.

The fierce wildfires, sparked by dry conditions and powerful winds, have killed at least five people and forced nearly 180,000 more from their homes.

“It’s hard to see, because there’s so much pain and suffering,” said Jay Gutovich, 37, of West Los Angeles, who stopped by the shelter to donate children’s toys — Legos, Hot Wheels, “whatever we could” — that he picked up at Target.

“And there’s a pull to politicize, when really the focus needs to be on helping people right now, and we can figure out the other stuff afterwards,” Gutovich said. “I think it’s important that we take these opportunities to be there for each other, because we’re all on the same team. How can we work together as a community to build the Los Angeles that we want as a collective?”

The Westwood dormitory area was sparsely populated Thursday morning, as many of the shelter residents leave during the day to meet up with friends or seek comfort in places like coffee shops. Many of the residents still have jobs to go to, including a person who hurried out the building with a coffee, adding that he was unable to chat because he was late to work.

Some shelter residents were walking around with everything they could carry strapped to their backs, alongside one or two additional roller bags. A Santa Monica woman said she grabbed all her photo albums and dropped them in a bin she brought with her when she evacuated.

Another Santa Monica resident, Svetlana Sornekova, 88, fed pieces of chicken to her small pup out of a plastic foam bowl. Around her, other temporary shelter residents were walking their dogs, the only loved ones they took with them when they evacuated.

All morning, volunteers at the center unloaded supplies from trucks and wheeled them inside the building. Residents outside of the evacuation zones have also dropped by in hope of helping, so much so that some volunteers and supplies have been turned away or redirected to other shelters.

Nicole Maul, a Red Cross spokesperson on the site, said there has been no shortage of goodwill in the midst of tragedy — even from those who are experiencing their own horrors.

“We’ve had volunteers who’ve been evacuated themselves. We have volunteers who’ve unfortunately lost homes. But they’ve said to me time and time again they want to show up for their neighbors,” Maul said. “And that makes my heart race a little bit — that someone who’s potentially going through so much says: ‘You know what? I want to be here. I know I’ve got the skills to help other people.’”

A group of local high school students — who got the day off as a result of the wildfire threat — were among those who showed up to help.

“We’re just doing as much as we can,” said Reagan Strazzeri, 16, adding that she and her friends were “making care packages and donating them wherever we can.”

At the Pasadena Convention Center, similar volunteer efforts were underway as people who evacuated from the Eaton Fire gathered.

The popular bagel chain Yeastie Boys blasted music from its food truck as it doled out free meals, joined by a food truck run by SOCALO, a Mexican restaurant, and Border Grill.

“We’re just trying to feed people,” a SOCALO food truck employee said as he rushed to hand out bags of food.

Other volunteers walked around offering water and sandwiches to the families standing outside.

The city of Pasadena said Thursday afternoon on X that because of “an overwhelming outpour of donations and support, the Pasadena Convention Center is no longer able to accept food, water, emergency supplies, or donations of any kind until further notice.” It thanked people for their generosity.

Terry Avery, 47, arrived at the shelter Wednesday night with her 13-year-old son, her husband and their dog. The family lost their Altadena home — and Avery had time to bring only a handful of items, including medication and a pair of sunglasses.

“We lost everything, and we can’t get up there yet, so we’re here with all the goodness of others,” she said. “They’re feeding us and keeping us safe.”

The community solidarity has been helping get her through the devastation.

“Everyone’s sort of going through this together,” she said. “There’s so many people feeding my son. The kindness, it’s truly overwhelming.”

But the grief has also been overwhelming.

“I’m just so sad for our community, because it really was and is a community,” she said. “It’s just going to be different.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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