Thousands find haven in hotels
Surprise boon for industry as evacuees, firefighters seek refuge, respite
As the LNU Lightning Complex fires raged toward Fairfield last week, Ashleigh Armstrong and her boyfriend gathered up their cat, clothes and her bar exam textbooks to evacuate to a hotel in Napa.
They would have sought refuge at a family member’s house in previous years, but this time is different. Armstrong’s highrisk health condition meant that potential exposure to the coronavirus from a family member was out of the question.
So instead they checked into a hotel, believing it would make it easier to keep their distance from other people.
“Especially with the bar exam looming, my partner and I are very nervous about getting infected,” she said.
Thousands of evacuees have made similar choices the past few weeks. On just one recent night — Tuesday — the Red Cross helped more than 1,700 evacuees find housing across 66 hotels, according to Jennifer Adrio, the Northern California Coastal Region CEO for
the Red Cross. If the pandemic weren’t here, many would have been housed in shelters instead.
For the beleaguered hotel industry, the rush of business has been a surprising boon. Rooms that have been empty for months since travel collapsed are springing to life, with discounts and adjusted pet rules. And it’s not just evacuees — firefighters, PG&E electricity crews and other first responders are also filling up some hotels.
“This is usually one of our busiest times of the year,” said Kamal Naran, general manager of the Aqua Breeze Inn in Santa Cruz, which is hosting evacuees at a steep discount. Now the hotel is “a different kind of busy,” and the biggest challenge may be the uncertainty surrounding how long each guest is staying, he added.
Because evacuees are housed at a large number of hotels instead of a handful of shelters, coordinating response and recovery is much more challenging, Adrio said. While the Red Cross and other agencies can usually help people access the resources they need (like FEMA disaster assistance) at shelters, this time volunteers have to fan out to find everyone.
Although the Red Cross is sending more people to hotels due to the need for distancing, about 1,200 people still spent Tuesday night at the organization’s evacuation shelters. The organization had prepared for the situation — unprecedented mass evacuations in the middle of a pandemic — and trained between 400 and 500 regional volunteers. “We knew this was coming,” Adrio said.
Beach Street Inn in Santa Cruz has been close to full with evacuees, even as some evacuation orders have eased so that some people can return to their homes.
Because the hotel is offering discounts and most of its tourist guests have left, the inn might not actually make much money from the new business, according to Laura Waltz, the general manager.
“It’s been a challenging year for our industry,” Waltz said.
“It’s been tough for months, and so being able to help people in a time of need, it felt really good.”
Last week, Santa Cruz County officials asked all visitors and tourists — who had recently begun to flock back — to leave hotels and motels to create space for evacuees.
Hotels should not be trying to capitalize financially on the surge in evacuee business, said Naran, of the Aqua Breeze Inn. “That’s not what this is about.”
The discounts at hotels vary, but some are charging evacuees $75 per day and flexible checkout dates and times.
The Beach Street Inn also changed its nopets policy for evacuees. Dogs now bark at each other from different rooms, and one guest brought a redtailed hawk and an owl that have frightened seagulls nesting on the hotel roof, according to Waltz. “That’s been a challenge for us, and it’s different,” she said. “But we want all these people to feel like they can at least take a breath.”
People who lost homes in places like Boulder Creek and Bonny Doon are contemplating long stays, Waltz said. Because the Beach Street Inn offers some rooms and suites with kitchens, she has fielded inquiries from people asking to stay for up to three months, which would be an adjustment from the inn’s usual practice.
In San Francisco, the need for evacuee housing allowed some hotels to reopen for the first time since March. Health orders in the city have forbidden most hotels from reopening for nonessential purposes.
Hotel Emblem in Union Square, San Francisco Marriott Marquis and San Francisco Proper are among the hotels that offered or are still offering discounted rates for evacuees.
Another is the Handlery, a threestar hotel in Union Square, which reopened to offer evacuees steeply discounted rates beginning Aug. 20 and has now filled about 20 rooms, according to Jon Handlery, the hotel president and general manager.
The Handlery provides the discount not just for people who are displaced, but also for those hoping to get out of their homes to avoid the sometimes extremely unhealthy air quality, he said. Air quality in San Francisco is often better than in locations closer to the fires.
Most hotels have adapted strict cleaning regimens and mask requirements, and some have plexiglass barriers at the front desks. A new San Francisco ordinance requires daily intensive room cleanings that are the strictest rules in the country, though hotel groups have sued the city over the requirements, which they say endangers cleaning workers by increasing their potential coronavirus exposure.
The Handlery has so few guests that each room can be left unattended for three days after the guests have left, which should help prevent the virus from surviving in the air
“It’s ing year been for a challeng our industry. It’s been tough for months, and so being able to help people in a time of need, it felt really good.”
Laura Waltz, geweral manager, Beach Street Inn in Santa Cruz
and on surfaces, Handlery said.
For guests, fear of the virus is still top of mind, even as they worry about their homes and possessions.
“While the hotel had hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes aplenty, and enforced the mask requirements, it's still a concern until we know for sure whether we were exposed,” said Armstrong, who has returned home after her hotel stay in Napa.