All evacuations linked to a possible explosion at a Garden Grove aerospace company were lifted Tuesday night, with no threat of a toxic blast, chemical fire, leak or danger to the public remaining, officials announced.
The evacuation orders saw 50,000 people in Garden Grove and some neighboring cities displaced from their homes through Memorial Day weekend, with the possibility of a catastrophic explosion or a hazardous vapor cloud a looming scenario.
The announcement that the remaining evacuation orders were lifted was made during a heated public comment period at a community meeting hosted Tuesday by the city of Garden Grove.
Though the announcement was met with applause, the audience members were also frustrated with the handling of the situation and evacuations in general.
“It’s really hard to have full trust in the evacuation order and that it’s safe to return home when there’s so little information, and we know those toxic chemicals are there,” said Dwight Hua, a youth coordinator with Viet Rise, who was among those evacuated.
“I think it’s good overall that the evacuation order is lifted so more people can go home,” said Bella Che, a Garden Grove resident who lives a few miles east of the plant. “But I’d like more specifics about why it is safe to go home, but it’s so hard to get information, and communication has been all over the place.”
The failure of a cooling system designed to regulate the temperature of chemical tanks at the plant — one of which dangerously overheated — prompted a hazmat response and led to the evacuations, authorities said Tuesday.
Orange County Fire Authority incident Cmdr. Craig Covey told the audience Tuesday night that the temperature in the compromised tank had stayed stable in the four hours since the water spraying the tank had been turned off, and all involved agencies were in agreement it was safe to cancel the evacuations.
“The hazmat teams were called out (Thursday) because the staff of the facility noticed that the cooling system was no longer working,” Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Brian Yau said. “There was a failure in that system, which is what caused the team at the facility to make the 911 call.”
Staff at GKN Aerospace, 12122 Western Ave., also had turned on the company’s water system in an attempt to cool the tanks, Yau said.
Officials do not know why the cooling system stopped working.
Fire officials said Tuesday morning the temperature of the overheated tank with 7,000 gallons of volatile, flammable methyl methacrylate remained stable overnight at 92 degrees as firefighters removed a ground hose that had been spraying water over the tank since Friday.
“The goal is to see that temperature go down on the tank,” Yau said earlier Tuesday. “We removed one of the cooling measures. We want to see the temperatures without that water application.”
If the temperature in the tank got down to 50 to 60 degrees, officials said, it would be stable enough to carry out ideas that experts are crafting to take care of the chemicals.
Millions of gallons of water were used on the tank to try to avert an explosion or chemical leak, Covey said.
On Tuesday evening, OCFA was able to stop all of its groundwater spraying, as well as water from GKN’s system.
Crews also transferred some liquid from two adjacent tanks to neutralize the chemicals in them, OCFA officials said, so they would no longer pose a volatile hazard.
Roughly 16,000 residents remained evacuated during the day Tuesday after OCFA reduced the evacuation zone Monday, saying the risk of a “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion” had been averted. Officials said a crack on the tank, discovered Sunday, was releasing pressure.
That meant the threat of a massive explosion that would release a toxic chemical plume was off the table. But authorities earlier cautioned there was still the danger of a leak that could send the chemicals spilling into the parking lot or a smaller explosion, both of which could result in the chemicals dispersing into the community.
Evacuation orders remained in place until Tuesday night for residents with a zone bordered by Orangewood Avenue to the north, Dale Street to the east, Knott Street to the west and Garden Grove Boulevard to the south, officials said.
See also: 70 people suing Garden Grove chemical tank owner over crisis as of Tuesday
Residents outside of that zone were able to return to their homes, and schools in the area were reopened Tuesday morning, officials said.
Parents returning with their children to local elementary schools said the days of being evacuated had been stressful and confusing, but the students were excited to get back to their campuses in the last few days of class.
Some parents said the sudden shift back to normalcy was difficult to adjust to after the days of evacuations, especially for families staying as far away as Palm Springs. Still, many said they did not want their children to miss end-of-year activities.
Helen Dam and her family, including two young daughters, had stayed with relatives in Huntington Beach.
“It was very stressful,” Dam said, but she made it work. “I’m a working mom, and I had to adjust quickly.”
The business districts in the areas where evacuations were lifted were still returning to normal Tuesday. A couple of owners said employees had been concerned about returning, and they were still getting a handle on how to recoup from the days of lost business.
Over the weekend, OCFA officials said first responders had been told by the GKN facility’s staff that there was nothing they could do and that the tank holding the methyl methacrylate likely would fail.
OCFA interim fire Chief TJ McGovern said that was “unacceptable” and that the authority “had to come up with options, solutions. That’s what we do.”
Yau on Tuesday said the water being used to cool the tank goes into a storm drain and to the ocean, with authorities conducting testing on the water after it hits the tank to make sure it is not contaminated.
“If there is material in the water, we have equipment in place to capture that material” with underflow dams, a specialized spill-containment barrier used in shallow bodies of water to trap floating pollutants, Yau said.
GKN Aerospace, based in the United Kingdom, has 32 manufacturing sites in 12 countries and 16,000 employees, according to its website. The company supplies airframe and engine structures and landing gear, among other aerospace products.
In a statement Tuesday, the company said the evacuation zone was reduced “based on data and consultation with experts” and that to date “there have been no leaks or contamination.”
“We are continuing to work around the clock with the OCFA, the (Environmental Protection Agency) and all relevant federal, state and local agencies,” the statement read.
“We apologize for the ongoing disruption this incident is causing, and our priority remains the safety of our neighbors and our community,” the statement continued. “We request that all those affected follow instructions issued by local authorities and emergency personnel at this time.”
Methyl methacrylate is a highly toxic substance that can “impact the respiratory system, cause skin irritation and eye irritation,” Covey said.
It is used as an ingredient in heat-resistant coatings in the aerospace industry and had a long history as an ingredient in products used in nail salons, but it has been banned at salons in California since at least 2015.
