Orange County chemical plant officials issue ‘incredibly positive’ update as 50,000 remain homeless

The worst fears around an unstable, increasingly high-temperature chemical plant in Orange County will fortunately not come to pass, fire officials announced Monday.

The Orange County Fire Authority said the threat of a massive chemical explosion has been “eliminated.”

“The BLEVE is off the table,” officials said, using the acronym for “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.”

There had been worries that a rupture in the container filled with methyl methacrylate, as temperatures increased, could result in a devastating explosion as one of the possible scenarios.

Methyl methacrylate, which is highly flammable and used to make plastics, has a low boiling point, so it can easily overheat and turn to gas. Firefighters had been spraying water in an attempt to lower the temperature, now at 93 degrees.

“That is incredible positive news as we turn the corner of this incident,” OCFA division chief Craig Covey said in ruling out an explosion.

A crack that appeared on the chemical tank gave hope that internal pressure would eventually release and avert the threat of an explosion. Officials had done an overnight operation “to confirm that the pressure in the tank has been released.”

Despite the good news, there is still the potential that about 7,000 gallons of the chemical could spill out into the streets.

Evacuation orders remain in place during this five-day-and-counting crisis for 50,000 people living in Garden Grove, Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster.

Four shelters for evacuees were full as of Monday morning, according to the city of Garden Grove, while three have space available.

The crisis has prompted extreme worries for officials, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who pleaded with President Trump to issue a federal emergency declaration to bring in more support.

Crews have been preparing for a possible spill by looking for ways to dike, dam and divert the liquid into a holding area at the site, rather than allow ​it to reach storm drains, river channels or the ocean.

Health officials ​said they ⁠were concerned that prolonged exposure to vapor from the chemical could cause severe respiratory problems.

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