After thousands of Orange County residents spent days locked out of their neighborhoods amid an evacuation, many raised complaints about the lack of updates from the OC Fire Authority during the crisis. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to so many people who had left essential medications, who had left pet food, who had left things that they needed to survive from a day to day basis at home with no communication about when they would be able to go back,\u201d said Lauriana Adriano at the Garden Grove City Council meeting on Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot more the city and the state and the government should have done for these people.\u201d<\/p>\n
While evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday night<\/a>, it remains unclear when people could get reimbursed for hotel stays or other financial damages, with many online complaining that shelters filled up so fast people were pushed into sleeping in their cars or in expensive hotel rooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read: OC Residents Impacted by Faulty Chemical Tank May Get Reimbursed<\/a><\/p>\n The complaints come after residents were asked to evacuate last Thursday evening due to a leaking chemical tank in Garden Grove, then told a couple hours later they were allowed to return home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cReturning our community safely to their homes is always a top priority,\u201d fire authority officials posted on X<\/a> on Thursday evening. \u201cWe appreciate your patience, cooperation, and support as operations continue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But the next morning, they expanded the evacuation zones and directed people to immediately leave their homes \u2013 with many unable to return home until Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n OC Fire Authority Captain Brian Yau said delays in posting came because they have to vet all their information before it goes out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want everyone to get back home just as much as they do,\u201d Yau said in a Tuesday interview. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to push out information that becomes misinterpreted or push out a false sense of hope or what can be perceived as \u2018oh you can go home soon.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He noted that as of noon Tuesday, the fire authority alone had five public information officers handling the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout the crisis, most updates on the status of the fire came in a couple times a day from the fire authority\u2019s public page on X, formerly known as Twitter, without many posts to the agency\u2019s own public website beyond a hotline number.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time the fire authority has faced complaints from residents over limited information during an emergency.<\/p>\n Orange County\u2019s residents have regularly dealt with spotty updates during a series of wildfires that prompted evacuations.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the 2022 Coastal Fire, officials with the city of Laguna Beach were sending out orders to evacuate to residents over an hour before they got a knock on the door from the county sheriffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n