More Than a Week After the Fires, Los Angeles Evacuees Remain in Limbo

Ivy Spruell was looking forward to celebrating her 17th birthday last week with friends.Her grandfather mailed her a card, which she tucked away to open the morning of her birthday, Jan.

10.And her boyfriend planned to come over to her Altadena home for a low-key party that evening.Instead, Ms.

Spruell’s life was turned upside down by the Eaton fire that swept through her neighborhood on Jan.7.Among blocks of devastation, her home still stands, but she and her mother cannot get to it.

The one time they made it into the evacuated zone last week, before law enforcement cut off access, they piled some clothes and other necessities into trash bags.Since then, they have moved from place to place, staying with friends or at hotels, the smell of smoke seeping from Ms.

Spruell’s rescued belongings, an unsettling reminder of the disaster.“It’s this constant, looming smoke that reminds you of home, which is, for me, personally, a really sad thing,” she said.“It’s hard that I don’t necessarily know where I’m going to be sleeping tomorrow or the day after, at this point.”More than a week after two major wildfires displaced tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents and leveled thousands of homes, evacuees said they felt stuck in a sort of post-disaster purgatory, shuttling among friends’ couches, shelters and hotel rooms, and getting turned away at cordoned-off areas.

Those with homes still standing have been desperate to get back to check on pets, retrieve documents and medication, and assess whether their properties are still livable.And people whose houses burned want a sense of closure and a chance to sift through the rubble.“It’s the limbo of not having access to our things or our home,” said Julie Weingarten, 48, Ms.

Spruell’s mother.“And then also the fear and anxiety around what it’s going to look like when we go back — I don’t know which is worse.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScrip...