A thread: Getty fire: Housekeepers, gardener go to work despite the flames - Los Angeles Times latimes.com/california/sto…
I met Carmen Solano when I spotted her taxi pulling up into a driveway. I’d just seen homes on fire a street over and immediately wondered why she was arriving instead of leaving. Turns out she was a housekeeper and had no idea the area was under mandatory evacuation
She’d packed a bunch of food for the day in this red backpack. She’d worked at this home for nearly two months. We actually got the owner on his doorbell ringer and he explained that they’d had to evacuate at 3 a.m. 
We drove down and while we walked we bumped into another housekeeper who hadn’t heard! She wanted to try and wait it out, because she’d already taken a week off to go to Mexico and she didn’t want to miss another day of work. Ultimately, she ended up sharing the Uber with Carmen
There were several more housekeepers and a babysitter I spotted who tried to take the bus to the pacific palisades but wasn’t able to. She was waiting on the corner for her boss to come pick her up. She was protecting herself from the ash with a paper towel, so I gave her my mask
Shout out to my Uber driver, who worked hard to find the route to me. My first one canceled on me.
Omg I could cry
Just found another housekeeper who left her car parked outside the mandatory evacuation zone and is now walking up to get to the house where she cleans. She never heard from her boss. She just asked me how to text “are you home” in English
Deleted a prior tweet, because I didn’t want to leave identifiable information: Here are their texts. She called him and had me translate. He forgot to text her, but said he’d pay her for the day. She’s going to head back to Lynwood now
Ok also, final thing, when Angelica Mesinas spoke with her boss she thanked him and apologized!! After she’d trekked a mile to into a mandatory evac zone to clean! That’s really stuck with me today.
To everyone asking how to help, I have not forgotten you! I’ve reached out to our @LATreadersrep about this
