In a swift 30 minute decision, sophomore Sarah Hanchey’s professors told their students to grab the small bag they were told inadvanced to pack — they would be evacuating from the Elon in Los Angeles campus on Jan. 8. Hanchey was left scrambling in frustration as she packed only a fraction of what she brought, leaving behind some clothes, toiletries and the boots she got for Christmas. Her and her classmates drove an hour south to Irvine, which had the closest hotel with a vacancy capacity to fit their 10-student class.
Hanchey recalls before they evacuated, going up to the roof of the LA campus and seeing the beautiful hue of a pink sunset become enveloped by smoke. A North Carolina native, Hanchey now faced a reality she was never accustomed to, wearing masks due to risk of asbestos contamination and seeing fires in the distance destroy and affect many people’s lives.
“It just put a damper on the whole trip,” Hanchey said. “Now it’s not like we can just be out enjoying LA, looking at all the views, because people literally blocks away have lost their homes.”…