The New Orleans Fire Department responded to a fire at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street Sunday. According to the fire department, they were dispatched to the hotel just after 11 a.m. due to reports of a fire on the second floor in a storage room. When the fire department arrived, they began initiating fire suppression and a rescue operation. “The lobby was all smoked up, the stair-well was smoked up. I was talking to somebody from the second floor he had to crawl because it was too smoky, alot of people were coughing,” said Reese Rhysauerback. One person in a wheelchair was rescued from the fourth floor, and a couple from the second floor was evacuated from their balcony.
Julien Barnes, a guest who was rescued from the hotel with his wife, told WDSU that he had received an automated notification from the hotel stating that there was an emergency. Barnes said that a loud voice then came over the speakers, saying it was not a drill and guests should calmly evacuate the hotel. According to Barnes, he and his wife had to be rescued from the balcony due to the smoke near their door. “I was pretty scared because I was thinking about what if it was in our room on our side of the floor, all of our stuff that we brought we don’t know what the state of it is,” said Popee Velasquez.
