APSA Fire Update

30 August 2014, 0821 EDT

Well, the main APSA hotel at the Marriott last night caught fire last night in what might be an act of arson, but we really don’t know. For those of us staying at the Marriott, we awoke at 1am to alarms and recorded messages to evacuate the building. We stayed outside until around 4:30 or 5am when we were allowed to go back in to the lobby. Sheets were handed out, and people splayed out as you see in the picture above. Looked like we were going to be able to go back to the rooms at 6am but we weren’t able to get back into our rooms until 8am.

Panels in the Marriott were originally cancelled until noon but now, it looks like things are back on as of 9:30am, Saturday August 30th.

UPDATE on Marriott panels: Panels will resume at 9:30a in the Marriott, per the original schedule. #APSA2014

— APSA (@APSAtweets) August 30, 2014

I haven’t heard if anyone was hurt. There was some smoke, and a few pictures on Twitter of fire and sprinkler damage. Stay safe everybody and get some sleep. Charli, looks like you made the right call!

Josh Busby

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.