Jonathan J. Cooper and Brian Melley Associated Press Published 9:29 PM EST Nov 9, 2018 Thousand Oaks, Calif. – A city reeling from the tragedy of a mass shooting was under a siege of a different sort Friday as raging wildfires on both sides of the city forced widespread evacuations and shut down part of the main freeway to town. Flames driven by powerful winds torched at least 150 homes in Southern California, burning parts of tony Calabasas and mansions in Malibu and prompting orders for 250,000 people– including some celebrities – to flee as the fire marched across the Santa Monica Mountains toward the sea. The cause of the blazes was not known. For Thousand Oaks, which had been considered one of the safest cities in the nation before a gunman massacred 12 people at a country music bar, the spasm of violence jolted the city’s sense of security. Encroaching flames, despite the near-constant threat of fire in the bone-dry state, presented an entirely different hazard. “It’s devastating. It’s like ‘welcome to hell,’” resident Cynthia Ball, said about the dual disasters while she was outside the teen center serving as a shelter for evacuees. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s like we’re all walking around kind of in a trance.” A day earlier, the facility had been the location where grieving family members had gathered and received the grim news on the fate of loved ones who had not returned from the Borderline Bar and Grill, where a… [Read full story]
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