Approximately 40,000 residents of Garden Grove, California, were under evacuation orders due to a leak from an aerospace facility’s storage tank, which has created a dangerous situation.
Officials have been working to figure out how to stop the tank that holds chemicals used to make plastic parts from exploding once it overheated on Thursday and vented vapors into the air, the Associated Press (AP) reported Saturday.
Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey said the tank could crack or blow up but authorities were unsure of a timeline.
“This thing is going to fail, and we don’t know when. We’re doing our best to figure out when or how we can prevent it,” he added.
Aerial video footage showed firefighters spraying the tank with water to keep its temperature low, per CBS LA. The outlet noted officials were monitoring air quality in the area:
So far, no one has been injured or killed but officials extended evacuation orders on Friday to additional cities. The AP article said the chemical inside the tank at GKN Aerospace was identified as methyl methacrylate.
In an update late Friday, Covey said he has “the best people around working on solutions” and teams have begun taking action. He noted efforts to cool the tank have been successful.
“It is not okay with me just to sit back and watch this thing blow up or fail. That is not acceptable to me. Our group is going to do everything they can to come up with a third, a fourth, a fifth option that is not that, that is not failure, and we can get all of you back home as soon as possible,” he continued, noting crews were working around the clock on the issue:
Authorities have also set up evacuation shelters for residents and the list has been expanding as officials work to solve the leak.
Video footage from KTLA showed residents preparing to leave the area for the time being:
When speaking about the chemical, Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Nick Freeman said, “It is a highly toxic, as previously stated, substance. So it could impact the respiratory system, cause skin irritation, eye irritation. The other concern we have is that it is extremely flammable. And in its current state, very reactive, and it can cause that explosion, which is why we have the hard perimeter in place.”
“It’s a respiratory irritant, so it can start off very mild, but it can progress to a point where, yes, it would require hospitalization, if not more,” he added, according to ABC 7.
