No vacancy: At the edge of fire country, motels pack rooms, clear meeting halls

By: CHRIS BAGLEY - Staff Writer | Tuesday, October 23, 2007 10:26 PM PDT ∞

Local motels filled with fire evacuees by midmorning Tuesday, with some setting up cots in conference rooms and others sending bedraggled drivers as far north as Corona, Riverside and Hemet.

Most had also filled up Monday evening after authorities advised 40,000 Fallbrook residents to leave their homes. Some evacuees stopped at motels in Temecula before being sent to Lake Elsinore or farther north.

Southwest County has about 2,100 hotel and motel rooms, a tiny number compared with the tens of thousands of San Diego County residents fleeing their homes, said Leslie Mercado, sales manager for the Temecula Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The Holiday Inn Express in Temecula attempted to call all its reserved guests to confirm reservations for Tuesday evening, in order to free up rooms for evacuees as early as possible. One New York man who had reserved a room there called in to push back a scheduled stay after learning of the mass evacuations, sales manager Fady Hasani said.

A few minutes before 11 a.m., a half-dozen cars were backed up on Jefferson Avenue, waiting to turn into the asphalt courtyard of the Best Western Country Inn. They trickled out just as quickly after hearing that there were no more rooms.

Gloria Garcia looked down at the scene from a second-floor balcony. Her daughter stood by, cell phone pressed to ear as her father told her of the flames that had engulfed the nursery across the street from the couple's house. He had woken up early Tuesday morning and headed back to Rainbow to check on their house, first managing to reserve a room for a second night.

Ray Roman and Greg Ciuffredo were not as lucky Tuesday. Shortly after 10 a.m. they emerged from their room. They had tried to make reservations for another night but found the motel was already full.

The Temecula Creek Inn, normally a destination for golf weekends, cut $60 off its room rates for evacuees, front-desk employee Stephanie Kissec said. The hotel filled all 129 of its rooms early in the day.

"We expected a low, quiet night, and then the fire hit," Kissec said.

The last lodging in Southwest County was taken by early afternoon, Mercado said.

Motel managers in Hemet, Riverside and Corona said they had taken in numerous evacuees, though several still had vacancies Tuesday afternoon. The Super 8 motel chain, which has 18 locations in San Diego County and western Riverside County, had no vacancies Tuesday afternoon between San Bernardino and San Ysidro, on the Mexican border, according to the chain's reservations staff.

Many local motels made do. Temecula's Ramada Inn, where all 176 rooms were full by noon, cleared a meeting hall and laid mattresses across the floor for evacuees. Pechanga Resort & Casino filled its 522-room hotel and opened up its ballroom to evacuees, including members of Indian tribes in San Diego County.

Anticipating a continued flood of evacuees through the rest of the week, several stopped taking reservations and began to fill rooms on a first-come, first-served basis.

One of those was Lake Elsinore Hotel and Casino. The hotel opened up 10 additional rooms it had recently closed for renovations after its first 85 rooms filled up Monday evening, Bobbi Ables, a hotel employee, said by phone.

"Everyone is still on a daily basis," Ables said. "They're waiting to see if they can go back to their house, if they have one."

Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2615, or cbagley@californian.com.