In Orange County, a sizable pressurized tank containing a hazardous chemical is in danger of blowing up or leaking, and authorities say they have very few options.
Craig Covey, a division commander for the Orange County Fire Authority, stated that by Friday night, firefighters were making headway in cooling the chemical tank’s temperature to about 61 degrees, with 50 degrees as the target.
However, during an afternoon update on Saturday, Covey said emergency teams discovered that earlier drone readings suggesting the tanks were stabilizing turned out to be misleading, forcing responders to reassess the danger level around the site.
The incident, which has triggered evacuations across Orange County given the unstable chemical tanks at a GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove.
Authorities are looking at a mass evacuation stretching to thousands in California.
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“We did put people in harm’s way last night”
“With that intel and working with the chemist from the emergency response team from the manufacturer, we made a call last night to go back offensive,” Covey said.
After a wave of relief from Friday night’s news, emergency teams later learned that drone-based readings failed to accurately measure the internal temperature of the liquid inside the compromised tank.
“Going back offensive, we did put people in harm’s way last night with support of the chemist team, that emergency response team, and our members,” Covey said during the briefing while explaining that firefighters re-entered the danger zone in an attempt to neutralize a volatile 15,000-gallon tank before conditions worsened further.
Firefighters then entered the hazardous zone directly to inspect gauges hidden beneath cooling water streams.
Once inside, crews reportedly confirmed the tank’s internal temperature had reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit and was continuing to climb by approximately one degree per hour.
“That’s the bad news,” Covey said during the update.
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Evacuations and emergency measures continue across affected areas
On Thursday, a tank containing MMA began to undergo a spike in temperature, which sparked the Garden Grove chemical leak. The tank started to swell at one point, and “it got to a point where it does what we call a BLEVE, which is a ‘boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion,'” Covey said on Friday afternoon.
The cause of the chemical tank’s temperature rise is unknown.
Authorities have maintained evacuation zones around portions of Garden Grove as emergency teams continue monitoring tank temperatures and evaluating containment strategies.
The regions north of Garden Grove Boulevard, east of Springdale Avenue, west of Dale Street, and south of Orangewood Avenue were all under evacuation orders.
Four shelters in Huntington Beach, La Palma, Anaheim and Fountain Valley have been opened to aid in the evacuation, according to the Los Angeles Times.
