Workers at a California senior home race to evacuate residents in wildfire

Dinner service at the Terraces at Park Marino in Pasadena, California, was about half over, and residents were gathering in the lobby for the night’s movie feature: “Scent of a Woman."

Sharon Tanner and Carlene Sutherland, both members of the resident council at the senior living community, were discussing what to do about people who leave their laundry in the washer or dryer when something caught their attention.

“I smell smoke,” Tanner said.

“So do I,” remarked Sutherland.

High above in the surrounding hills, a fire was burning. Within an hour, the Terraces' staff and residents would be in a race for their lives, walking, rolling and stumbling out into a hellscape of swirling coals.

The wildfires that have ravaged the Los Angeles area since Jan. 7 have claimed at least two dozen lives and destroyed thousands of structures. AccuWeather, a company that provides data on weather and its impact, puts the damage and economic losses at $250 billion to $275 billion.

About 150,000 people in Los Angeles County remain under evacuation orders.

Around 850 patients and residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and group homes were evacuated after the blazes last week, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Among them are the people who called the Terraces home. The three-story wood and stucco building is partially covered with ivy, and nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The 95 residents — ranging in age from 60 to 102 — were divided between assisted living and memory care.

Jan. 7 started out just like any other Tuesday. Breakfast was served from 7-9 a.m. Then at 9:45, it was time for “Stay Fit” — what they call their chair exercises.

The afternoon was full of other activities, and at 5:30, it was time for Movie Night.

Not long into the film, a visiting nurse came by and told staff there was a fire in the hills above. Neither local nor state officials had suggested that the Terraces evacuate, says Adam Khalifa, President and CEO, Diversified Healthcare Services, which owns and operates the facility.

Just the same, staff decided to begin bringing the residents down to the lobby. They started methodically draping lanyards around each neck with badges containing the resident's photo, name and apartment number; on the back were medical details: any conditions, cognitive deficits and “do not resuscitate” orders.

Off-duty staffers began showing up to volunteer, calling families to let them know what was happening, and some families came and picked up their loved ones.

Yesenia Cervantes, director of the memory care unit, was on the phone with hospice to get some help evacuating those residents when the power went out at around 6:40 p.m. When the yard outside the dining room caught fire, she and another employee grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran outside and put out the blaze.

Smoke began filling the lobby. Residents donned protective masks.

By 7:45 p.m., the backyard had reignited. Cervantes decided it was time to clear Safe Haven, the memory care wing; around the same time they got an evacuation order.

Some residents were still in bed. One woman who’d had a seizure earlier that day was too weak to rise; Cervantes lifted her up and put her in a wheelchair. Other staff made multiple forays to the upper floors, carrying residents downstairs.

When they got outside, it was bedlam. Workers from a skilled-nursing facility next door were wheeling their residents across the road in chairs and on beds. First responders were shouting and gesturing, telling people to move down the street and convene at the 7-Eleven.

Tanner, 72, was struggling when a man with dark hair appeared out of the smoke and told her sit on the bench of her walker.

“Hold your feet up,” the stranger said as she faced back toward to the Terraces. “Be careful.”

He towed her across the road “like a bat out of hell,” made sure she was OK, then disappeared into the haze in search of someone else to help.

When residents and staff reached the convenience store parking lot, transport vehicles were already waiting. Tanner and two other residents were loaded into an ambulance and whisked away. Other residents were packed into buses and taken to the Pasadena Convention Center 5 miles away.

After residents were situated with cots, water and food, the Terraces staff went to work finding each of them a place to stay — be it a home, a hospital or another senior living facility.

When the smoke cleared, all that remained of their former home was a charred, water-stained shell, several of the black metal letters that once spelled out “the Terraces at Park Marino” over the front door missing.

For now, Tanner says she’s staying with her sister and brother-in-law in San Jose. But she can’t wait to see all of her friends again, when, and if, the center is rebuilt.

“Wherever I go is going to be just temporary,” she says. “Because as soon as it’s built, I’m back to the Terraces. That was my home, and that’s where I want to live.”

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Breed, an AP national writer, reported from Wake Forest, North Carolina; Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri.