Couple on Vacation in Mexico Gets Devastating News About Their Home amid L.A. Fires: 'We Don't Know Where to Go' (Exclusive)

Sara Smith had just boarded her plane to Mexico with her boyfriend on Tuesday morning when she learned about the fires in Pacific Palisades, where they live.

The 26-year-old social media content creator recalls her boyfriend turning to her and asking, "Should we get off the plane?" In that moment, Smith, who grew up in Orange County, didn’t know how to respond. As a Southern California local, she was accustomed to fires happening frequently and didn’t immediately feel alarmed.

However, the next morning, Jan. 8, while looking at maps and watching videos of the area, she learned that the Palisades Village had been destroyed by the fires. "Our grocery stores are gone," she tells PEOPLE exclusively. "My boyfriend's friend had managed to return to the Palisades and reported that from the bottom of Sunset at [the Pacific Coast Highway] to the village, the area was unrecognizable."

It wasn’t until an hour later, around 12 p.m., while Smith and her boyfriend, Shane, were eating lunch, that they received another video showing the stretch of Sunset Boulevard where their apartment was located. At the end of the video, in the final moments, Smith saw that her apartment was no longer standing.

"The second I saw it, I began crying and shaking," Smith tells PEOPLE. "I just kept saying, 'We have to go home, we have to go home.'"

"We came back up to our room, and my boyfriend, Shane, just held me while I sobbed. He began to cry too," she adds. "I called my mom, who is my rock, and she was sobbing as well. My grandma and uncle spent most of their lives in the Palisades. My grandma got sober there. My uncle went to elementary school there, so the city has a special place in my entire family's hearts."

Related: UCLA Student Posts Video of Flames from Palisades Fire Visible from Her Dorm Room as She's 'Trying to Stay Calm' (Exclusive)

In that moment, Smith recorded the pair's reaction and posted it on TikTok, where it quickly went viral, amassing more than 15 million views and 9,000 comments. During the video, she adds how you can hear Shane say, 'Should we dance it out?,' noting how that comment is a true testament to who he is.

"Even in possibly one of the lowest moments of our lives, he finds a way to stay positive and lift me up. When something this crazy happens, sometimes all you can do is laugh because you feel helpless and uncomfortable," she says.

"Our entire city is gone, and we've cried so much," she adds. "But at the end of the day, we are alive, and we have each other."

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Since posting, Smith says her community on TikTok and Instagram has also come to her rescue, with "thousands and thousands" of people reaching out with love, support, compassion and empathy.

"I'm used to chatting with strangers online because I've had these platforms for years, but sometimes looking at the number of people in my community seems surreal; I don't acknowledge it often," she says. "Seeing the thousands of comments and messages validating my loss and offering a helping hand has been the biggest reminder that I am not alone in this."

"People have offered accommodation, clothes, and even a random girl Venmo'd me $30... Humanity is still good," she adds. "We see so much hate and terrible things online, but this is a testament that people are still kind."

As of now, the couple plans to return to the L.A. area on Friday, Jan 10. They're going to try their best to get into the Palisades to evaluate the damage before heading to Smith's parents in Orange County, where they will stay for the foreseeable future.

"We have never wanted to live anywhere else other than the Palisades," she says. "That was going to be where we eventually raised a family. So now ... we have no rent to pay. Do we travel and pay for an Airbnb like it is the rent we would have been paying at home? Do we move back to Orange County? We would move to Malibu but all the apartments are gone there too, so we don't know where to go next."

"I had four friends in the Palisades who have all lost their homes as well," she adds. "One just spent her life's savings on her wedding ... The other is expecting a baby soon ... We are mourning together. My family has my back."

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.

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