A woman was hoping to collect her father’s vintage music records from his coastal home. Another was desperate to see that her house was still standing. A third begged a police officer to let her get a pet turtle.
Hundreds of people descended on police barricades in a coastal area of Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, in cars and on foot. They were looking for ways to visit destroyed properties or salvage items from those still standing after the Palisades Fire ravaged the area.
They were all turned away, according to the police present on site.
“It’s just a huge sadness,” said Yelena Entin, the woman who was looking for her turtle. “Uncertainty about the future: we don’t know when we’ll be able to get in.”
The Pacific Palisades neighborhood and parts of Santa Monica and Malibu remained under a mandatory evacuation order Monday, nearly a week after the Palisades Fire razed hundreds of homes in the area and killed at least eight people.
Some residents returned to the evacuation zone last week, when access was easier, but the only people allowed in Monday were emergency responders, utility workers and journalists allowed in under the California law.
It was not immediately clear whether any landowners were finding unofficial ways to get around the blockades around the area. The barricades are manned by local police and members of the National Guard.
On Monday, people at the barricades expressed growing frustration with what they called a change in access policy. Some residents said they had been allowed to enter the evacuated area earlier in the week but were now prevented from doing so. Others said they were promised police escorts to their homes, but this never materialized.
The Los Angeles Police Department announced over the weekend that it would end police escorts in the area because such trips were straining police resources. But some people in the area said Monday they were trying to go inside anyway.
“I managed to force my way through a few times — I’m just trying to figure out how to do this today,” said Matt Marquis, who was turned away at a checkpoint. He said he wanted to check his goldfish and his electric and gas lines.
Brittaney Krebs said she was looking for a way to get to her father’s house in Malibu. She hoped to collect some memorabilia – particularly platinum vinyl records from the 1970s and 1980s – before the winds picked up again in the area.
“Things I wish I had after he passed away,” she said. “We’re all out, everyone’s OK – it’s just sentimental things.”
Others simply simmered.
“They’re not giving us answers,” said Ronen Malek, who wanted to see if anything could be salvaged from the Palisades office building she owns that was destroyed in the fire. “We are dealing with so much stress and anxiety.”
As a line of cars waited at his checkpoint Monday afternoon, Steve Romero, an officer with the Santa Monica Police Department, tried to be a calming presence. He directed people to pharmacies to find replacement medications and explained to evacuees which areas of the neighborhood had burned.
“We had people crying and screaming,” he said. But “as long as you understand their state of mind and show them compassion, you are able to get through it.”
