One of the guests, Coco Yang, was looking for her son and daughter after they had evacuated from the 28th floor. She said she had woken up to the smell of smoke.

“As soon as she got up, she said, ‘We’re going to die,’” said her daughter, Sonia Piaggi, who was staying at the hotel with her mother, her brother Mattia Piaggi, and a friend, Luca Mornet.

Mr. Piaggi was on crutches and, as they made their way out of the room, took a different stairwell than their mother and they were separated.

Another guest, Linda Lawrence, stood outside the hotel, barefoot. Ms. Lawrence, of Plymouth Meeting, Pa., was visiting New York for one night and was on the 49th floor of the hotel with her husband and two daughters, Charlee, 7, and Kayce, 7, when the fire alarm sounded, she said.

“We ignored it because there are so many false alarms,” she said.

Her daughters looked out the window and saw heavy billowing smoke, she said. It smelled like burning rubber.