Anthony Quintano/Civil Beat

Most evacuations went calmly and smoothly, security guard Leonard Rosa said.

Cory La Roe, who is from Florida and stationed in Hawaii with the Air Force, works night shifts and was asleep when sirens woke him at about 2:15 p.m.

“First thing, I was kind of disoriented and confused about what was going on, so I looked out my window and saw people running away from the building, looking back toward it.”

La Roe said he didn’t hear any verbal announcements and there were no flashing fire alarm lights in the building, but “after I saw people running out and went out to the hallway, I knew it was a fire alarm.”

He saw an elderly couple come down that looked “sooty” who were taken to the hospital. He saw other people brought out on stretchers.

He didn’t realize that the building didn’t have a sprinkler system and was surprised that was the case.

“That’s one thing that I wasn’t aware of prior to moving in,” La Roe said. “It was definitely shocking for me to know that there weren’t any sprinklers installed in the building.”

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the city needs to look at passing a law requiring older buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers.

“The biggest argument is the affordability,” Caldwell said. “Residents have to pay. It’s pretty expensive. But if it saves a life and it’s your life, it’s worth the cost.”

No one from the building said they remembered recent fire drills, but Anna Viggiano, who lives on the 6th floor, said there were some after a 2013 fire that broke out two floors above her. She said since then she doesn’t hesitate to evacuate when she hears the alarm.

“It was scary,” she said. “It was terrifying.”

Some residents also said they didn’t hear the fire alarms.

Gordon Kihune lives on the 13th floor of the Marco Polo apartments and has lived in the building for about 12 years. He says he hasn’t seen any fire extinguishers or hoses in the building that he can remember, and didn’t hear the alarms going off when the fire broke out.

He said he “only recognized the fact that there was something wrong when I saw the fire trucks pull up, and then I poked my head out, then I could hear the alarm.”

Kihune says he has a “bit of a hearing problem” with high-pitched sounds, but since the alarm is in the hallway and not close to his apartment, he could not hear it. He added that “For people that have that disability, it could be a reason for not hearing it.”

Kihune also said that after the firefighters went up to battle the blaze there was water running down the stairwells and he slipped on his way out.

Angela Kim lives on the 30th floor and says that while there have been fire alarm tests, the siren was not loud enough to hear.