Families Struggle to Access the Palisades Fire Evacuation Zone

One woman hoped to salvage her father’s vintage music records from his coastal home. Another was desperate to see that her house was still standing. A third pleaded with a police officer to let her look for a pet turtle.

Hundreds of people descended on police barricades in a coastal area of Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, by car and on foot. They were searching for ways to visit destroyed properties or to retrieve items from ones that were still standing after the Palisades fire swept through the area.

They were all turned away, according to police officers at the scene.

“It’s just an overwhelming sadness,” said Yelena Entin, the woman who was looking for her turtle. “The uncertainty for the future — we don’t know when we will be able to get in.”

The Pacific Palisades neighborhood and parts of Santa Monica and Malibu remained under a mandatory evacuation order on Monday, nearly a week after the Palisades fire leveled hundreds of homes in the area and killed at least eight people.

Some residents re-entered the evacuation zone last week, when access was easier, but the only people being allowed inside on Monday were emergency responders, utility workers and journalists who are allowed to visit under California law.

It was not immediately clear if any homeowners were finding unofficial ways to pass through blockades around the zone. The barricades are staffed by local police officers and members of the National Guard.

People at the barricades on Monday expressed mounting frustration with what they said were shifting policies on access. Some residents said they had been allowed into the evacuated zone earlier in the week, but now were barred. Others said they had been promised police escorts to their homes that never materialized.

The Los Angeles Police Department said over the weekend that it would be halting police escorts into the zone because such trips were straining police resources. But some people in the area on Monday said they were trying to get inside anyway.

“I’ve been able to make my way in a few times — I’m just trying to figure out how to do that today,” said Matt Marquis, who was turned away at a checkpoint. He said he wanted to check on his goldfish and on his power and gas lines.

Brittaney Krebs said she was seeking a way into her father’s house in Malibu. She was hoping to salvage keepsakes — especially platinum vinyl records from the 1970s and 1980s — before winds in the area picked up again.

“Things that I would like to have, when he passes,” she said. “We all got out, everybody’s OK — it’s just sentimental things.”

Others simply stewed.

“They don’t give us answers,” said Ronen Malek, who wanted to see if anything could be salvaged from the office building she owns in the Palisades that was destroyed in the fire. “We are dealing with so much stress and anxiety.”

As a line of cars waited at his checkpoint on Monday afternoon, Steve Romero, an officer with the Santa Monica Police Department, was trying to be a calming presence. He directed people to pharmacies to find replacement medication and explained to evacuees which areas of the neighborhood had burned.

“We’ve had people crying and yelling,” he said. But “as long as you understand their state of mind and show them compassion, you’re able to get through it.”