Authorities in Southern California were racing Friday to prevent a hazardous chemical storage tank from failing or exploding, as evacuation orders expanded to reach about 40,000 people around Garden Grove, California. The risk centered on a tank at an aerospace plastics facility run by GKN Aerospace that officials said overheated and began venting vapors.
Orange County Fire Authority said the storage tank contained methyl methacrylate, a chemical used to make plastic parts. The tank held between 6,000 and 7,000 gallons (22,700 and 26,500 liters), and it started overheating Thursday, when it began venting vapors into the air, the fire authority said.
Fire officials said the tank posed two possible worst-case outcomes: it could fail and crack, releasing the chemical onto the ground, or it could explode. Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey said authorities were working to understand when and how they could prevent that outcome.
As teams responded, officials ordered residents in Garden Grove to leave and expanded evacuation orders Friday to some residents of five other Orange County cities: Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster. Officials said they were unable to stop the leak overnight on the tank at GKN Aerospace.
No injuries or deaths had been reported, officials said. Later Friday, Covey said authorities were able to maintain the tank’s temperature, “buying time” to figure out how to fix the problem.
Fire crews also prepared for the possibility of a spill by creating containment barriers with sandbags, officials said, in case the chemical leaked from the tank and threatened storm drains, creeks, or the nearby ocean. Separate teams worked to stabilize the situation after a first effort succeeded at neutralizing one of two damaged tanks, officials said, before attention shifted to what Covey described as the more severe remaining tank.
Health officials warned that the danger could increase if the chemical heats up further. Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, the county health officer, said the chemical could release a vapor harmful to people’s health, including respiratory issues, itching and burning eyes, nausea and headaches.
GKN Aerospace said in an emailed statement that specialized hazardous materials teams were assessing the situation. The company said there were no reports of injuries at that time and that its priority remained the safety of employees and responders as well as the surrounding community, adding that it would provide verified updates as more information became available.
Residents described sudden departures after alerts began early Friday. Danny Pham, who lives a couple of blocks from the plastics plant, said he was in a dream when his roommate woke him around 7 a.m. and told him he needed to leave immediately; Pham said he took shelter at a friend’s restaurant after grabbing only his wallet and passport.
Another resident, Kim Yen, said she heard a sirenlike sound from her phone on Thursday night and received an alert telling her to leave. She said she drove to her daughter’s house in Seal Beach and worried some people in the local Vietnamese community might ignore or not understand the evacuation alert because it was in English, prompting translated updates and guidance on local Vietnamese television stations.
Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein urged compliance with the evacuation orders, saying in comments shared by officials that the orders were in place for residents’ safety as response teams worked to keep the tank’s temperature under control.