So quick recap. I don't believe the city was in fact Balders gate, your character was already in the pod from what is shown. So they have no way of knowing where the others were picked up, and that a city was attacked by the Naut. There is a remark by Le or even your own character if you pick Gith 'How many people did these gha'aik abduct?' Which means in the pod you have no clue as to whats happening around you.
The fact that the ship, instantly teleports from a nice sunny area, to a frozen canyon area, then to Avernus in the blink of an eye shows that the first city could have been anywhere in Faerun. Add to this Eltereal buying recently vacationing in Hell as someone pointed it leaving BG an island in a sea of refugees leads me to further believe it wasn't BG hit. No refugees appearing around the walls. (could been an oversight) The lack of urgency for several things is probably do to you just landed, if you immedaitly get to grove with no long rest then your still on day 1, it takes a week or so to get from Elteral to BG. so unless you camp repeated each long rest is like going to the next day. you'd have to take 7 long rests for messengers/refugees etc to get to BG. This is on a good day, a day were goblins are not rampaging in the wilds, killing travelers, messengers and such.
I don't think most people are taking that many long rests in quick succession (could be wrong, probly am do to topics about easy to exploit long rests, and others) with the chance of turning into a mindflayer at any moment.
