Chicagoans caught in Los Angeles wildfires are prepared for worst
CHICAGO (CBS) -- As of late Wednesday, the devastating wind-fueled wildfires in the Los Angeles area had left five people dead and many more hurt, and had destroyed more than 1,000 structures—including many luxury homes.
Tens of thousands of residents were under evacuation orders late Wednesday, and 1.5 million were without power.
Verda Foster of south suburban Hazel Crest, and her mother, Dorothy Jacobs of Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, were in the middle of their yearly trip to visit family in LA on Wednesday. But this one was unlike any other.
Foster and Jacobs were in Encino, just north of the Palisades Fire. They have an evacuation strategy and are ready to go at a moment's notice.
"We visit regularly around this time of the year, and normally there's a lot of rain," said Foster, "and so it's so unusual it hasn't rained."
The pair has been glued to local news, updating family on Facebook and praying they fly back to Chicago Saturday as planned. This kind of devastation is new to Midwesterners like Foster and Jacobs.
"I'll take my blizzards—the things, you know, that I'm accustomed to—as opposed to this that we're experiencing now," said Foster.
Chicago native Cody Wilkins feels the same about the fires.
"It's my first time experiencing anything like this," he said.
Wilkins is a member of our extended CBS Chicago family—one of Investigator Dorothy Tucker's two sons, both of whom live in Los Angeles.
"She's been pinging us throughout the morning and just making sure everything's good," Wilkins said.
And things are good, for now, in the Wilshire are where Wilkins is. Still, he is preparing—should that change.
"I woke up this morning and I scanned all my important paperwork—you know, birth certificates and Social Security cards and all this," Wilkins said.
It is one thing he can control, when the rest is at the whim of Mother Nature.
"It's pretty anxiety inducing to just be on the lookout to try to figure out what the next move is," Wilkins said.
Both of Tucker's sons have places they know they can go to for safety should they be evacuated, their mom said that includes a flight home to Chicago.
Hannah Herbst is a also former Chicagoan now living in Los Angeles.
"When I woke up this morning, there was just ash and smoke throughout the sky," said Herbst. "My car was covered in ash. It got to the point where smoke was actually coming into my apartment."
Herbst moved to LA from Chicago about three years ago. On Wednesday, she evacuated from her Central LA apartment and drove to Las Vegas, where she plans to ride out the wildfire.
"It feels a little like a dream. I haven't considered the fact that all my possessions could be gone," said Herbst. "There aren't really words to describe it unless you're going through it."
The Palisades fire has ripped through Malibu—torching homes up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH. The fire has not reached Sophia Galate's central Malibu home yet, but her car is packed with personal belongings, and she is ready to evacuate at a moment's notice.
"I actually don't have that much stuff. But yes, my whole entire car is packed," Galate said. "We also filled up our big trash cans with water and lined them around our house."
Galate went to college in Chicago, and lived in the city for about five years before moving back home to LA.
Galate has relied on a generator. Like so many others, the fire left her without power.
"It's really scary, and it just it's just crazy that, most fires, they normally happen on the mountains," she said. "So for fires now to come all the way up to PCH right next to the ocean is just freaky."
The reach of just one Los Angeles fire, for perspective
The largest fire burning is in the Pacific Palisades—about 21 miles from downtown LA. To help put it into perspective, about 21 miles from downtown Chicago would involve going west to Lombard.
The Palisades Fire is burning out of control and is not contained, and is destroying more or less everything in its path. As it stands, more than 15,000 acres have burned in just the Palisades Fire alone.
That is the size of Lombard and Downers Grove both being completely destroyed by fire.
As to the mandatory and voluntary evacuation zones in the Los Angeles area, they would encompass an area from Itasca on the north to Lemont on the south—also including Oak Brook, Naperville, Elmhurst, Bolingbrook, and Carol Stream—if Lombard were the center point of the wildfire.
