40,000 Southern Californians ordered to evacuate amid threat of chemical explosion
Authorities are working to prevent a potential hazmat explosion in Southern California, where an estimated 40,000 people were under evacuation orders.
Fire officials face a rare situation in which they are unable to control the valves on an industrial tank at an aerospace manufacturing facility in Garden Grove. The tank, filled with a volatile and toxic chemical, is threatening to explode or leak.
Craig Covey, the Orange County Fire Authority incident commander at the scene, said Friday that experts from around the country have submitted “outside-the-box” ideas, some of which fire personnel hope to try out overnight, to prevent a potential disaster.
“It is not OK with me just to sit back and watch this thing blow up or fail,” he said in a Friday evening update.
Initial evacuation orders were issued Thursday after a “vapor release” at the manufacturing site in Garden Grove. The situation seemed to be stable, but on Friday, the valves on a tank became inoperable, the Orange County Fire Authority said.
“We are setting up these evacuations in preparation for these two options: it fails or it blows up,” Covey said.
Covey said in a video update late Friday afternoon that the tank’s temperature has been stabilized by a curtain of sprayed water, reducing its volatility and buying time for a potential, long-term fix.
Efforts to lower the temperature appeared to be helping Friday night.
“It’s down to a temperature around 61 degrees, with 50 being its happy place,” he said in a video update around 8 p.m. local time.
The lower temperatures might allow fire personnel to get closer to the tank overnight to implement some of the ideas submitted to authorities, he said.
Overnight, Covey said, a “full nightshift” was assigned to the incident, and an update will be provided Saturday morning.
The high temperature Friday for Garden Grove was 74, and its morning low was 61, according to National Weather Service data.
The tank contains methyl methacrylate, a toxic chemical used to manufacture resins and plastics, including Plexiglass.
In a video announcement, Covey urged caution for people in the area of the leak, which includes parts of the cities of Garden Grove, Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster.
Garden Grove is about 35 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
“It is a highly toxic substance,” OCFA Division Chief Nick Freeman said at an afternoon news briefing. “It’s extremely flammable and in its current state very reactive, and can cause that explosion.”
The tank was not emitting the chemical on Friday, authorities said, and no injuries have been reported.
The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said it activated the State Operations Center to support the local response to the hazardous materials incident.
Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, the health officer of Orange County, said the emergency is unprecedented and it is difficult to predict an outcome.
“This is a unique situation,” she told reporters. “We don’t have information of a similar situation where this happened, right? So we’re going into unique times, and we have limited information.”
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, methyl methacrylate can cause lung and skin irritation, headaches, coughing and wheezing, and has been suggested but not proven as a possible cause of colon and rectal cancers.
Chinsio-Kwong added in Friday’s late-afternoon video update that anyone who can smell the chemical, which can emit a fruity and “heavy” odor, may be exposed to health risks. She said no one has reported such a smell, and local air quality officials have not detected the chemical in the environment.
Garden Grove Police Chief Amir El-Farra told reporters that the evacuation zone includes about 40,000 people.
The EPA is supporting local authorities with air monitoring. A spokesperson said OCFA is the lead agency handling the emergency.
Authorities first responded to reports of a “vapor release” from multiple chemical storage tanks at the facility in the 12100 block of Western Avenue in Garden Grove about 3:22 p.m. Thursday, the OCFA said in a statement.
Initial evacuation orders were rolled back after authorities were able to cool the tanks, the OCFA said. But lack of valve control prompted the renewed evacuations on Friday, it said. A tank holding about 6,000 to 7,000 gallons is being cooled by a sprinkler system and an unmanned hose line, the agency said.
A spokesperson for the manufacturer on site, GKN Aerospace, said by email, “The situation at our Garden Grove site remains ongoing, and we are fully focused on working with emergency services and the relevant authorities to ensure the safety of our employees and the local community.”
David Douglas contributed.
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