Officials race to cool down tank containing toxic chemical as 50,000 residents remain under evacuation in California

Emergency crews in Orange County, California, are working nonstop to prevent an overheating tank filled with a toxic chemical from leaking or triggering what could be a catastrophic explosion as approximately 50,000 residents remain under an evacuation order.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Orange County on Saturday as the state ramps up its response to the hazardous chemical incident, including expanding shelter availability.

Authorities have spent the past days trying to prevent the tank, which is full of the chemical methyl methacrylate, from exploding after it began to overheat. The evacuation zone includes a 9-square-mile area around the aerospace facility

Orange County Fire Authority Captain Steve Concialdi told CNN “the air quality is good” and readings were showing safe conditions.

The chemical, also known as MMA, is used to manufacture plastics and can potentially cause respiratory issues, according to the Environmental Protection Agency .

Some residents have reported symptoms including throat and nasal irritation, as well as dizziness.

Officials had been using drones to measure the temperature of the tank and had initially believed the tank was cooling off. But Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief and Unified Incident Commander Craig Covey said on Saturday the temperature has risen to 90 degrees.

“Yesterday morning it was 77 degrees when we backed out. It’s been averaging about a degree an hour increasing, so that’s the bad news,” he said”

The discovery was made after emergency crews were put “in harm’s way” Friday night in an attempt to neutralize a second tank at the facility, Covey said.

Concialdi told CNN on Saturday crews are racing to stabilize the compromised tank by cooling and neutralizing the chemical in hopes it will solidify from the outside inward — a process he compared to an ice cube freezing.

“It basically gets hard from the outside first, and inside there is still liquid in there until it completely ices over, and that’s what we’re hoping will happen,” Concialdi said, but warned the process may not succeed.

“A couple things could happen. … The tank could crack and start spilling out all that 7,000 gallons of chemical, or there could be a catastrophic explosion and the other two tanks would be affected as well,” the fire captain said.

“If it starts failing, we have some containment areas, secondary containment, diking and damming with sand that will be set up, or have already been set up,” Concialdi added.

The fire captain said officials are “unsure” about the precise temperature at which the tank could ignite or explode.

“Letting this thing just fail and blow up is unacceptable to us,” Covey said.

The next phase, Covey said in an update Saturday, involves preventing anything from inside the tank from moving into waterways and oceans as they work to protect homes and the environment from any failure to the tanks.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said there is currently no risk to her city, but urged Angelenos to avoid the area. Los Angeles Fire Department is on standby, she said, to help in Orange County.

GKN Aerospace Transparency, which operates the facility, said on Saturday the situation “remains ongoing.”

“We are fully focused on working with emergency services, specialized hazardous material teams and the relevant authorities to ensure the safety of the local community, our employees and everyone else involved,” the company said , while apologizing for the “significant disruption” to residences and local businesses who had to evacuate.

On Friday, police made a reverse 911 call to tell people to evacuate and posted on social media about the evacuations, Garden Grove Police Chief Amir El-Farra said.

The Orange County Fire Authority released a video detailing the blast zone and which areas are at risk of severe structural damage and significant harm in case of an explosion.

Those residing in the red zone are in areas where fires could occur while those within the orange oblong inside that zone face conditions “dangerous to life and health” where exposure to the chemical could cause injury if it is inhaled or come into contact with.

About 15% of people — or about 6,000 residents — from the evacuation area had refused to leave, he said.

The Red Cross on Saturday night opened a new shelter at Golden West College in Huntington Beach as three others –– one in Fountain Valley , one in La Palma , and another at Oceanview High School in Huntington Beach –– neared capacity for overnight stays.

A shelter at a high school in nearby Anaheim that is managed by another organization is also open for displaced residents .

Discounted rates at nearby hotels over the holiday weekend were also being offered.

The state of emergency allows California to deploy additional response resources and authorities, including using state-owned properties and fairgrounds as shelters for evacuees if needed.

The industrial site where the tank is located is about 5 miles from Disneyland and about 4 miles from Knott’s Berry Farm. Both parks told CNN they are actively monitoring the situation and are focused on guests’ and employees’ well-being and safety. The parks, which are both outside the evacuation zone, remain open and operational.

“This is going to happen unless some brilliant guy behind me here figures out how we can mitigate this incident,” Covey said as he emphasized the need to evacuate. “This thing is going to fail.”

The site where the chemical tank is overheating belongs to GKN Aerospace Transparency, a British company that makes landing gear and other parts for airplanes.

GKN Aerospace says the Garden Grove location is the “world’s leading provider of military transparency systems and commercial aircraft transparencies.”

Issues revealed in a November 2020 inspection at the Garden Grove facility led to a violation notice and GKN Aerospace paying nearly $1 million in a settlement.

The inspection by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD – a regional pollution control agency – determined the site had failed to maintain and keep required records documenting its VOC emissions, which produce poor air quality if they are released at harmful levels, according to the agency.

Inspectors also found GKN had operated new equipment without securing a permit as well as existing equipment that did not match the description in the permit, the agency said. It also modified permitted equipment without applying for a permit change, which is required by the agency, the statement said.

The company received two notices to comply – mandating fixes to the reported issues – in December 2020 and February 2021, the agency said, but it failed to comply. That led to a notice of violation in April 2021 and a civil penalty of roughly $900,000 paid by GKN, the agency said.

Since the violation, the agency said it has been “working closely with GKN to help resolve these permitting issues.”

Two more notices to comply were issued to GKN in March of last year requesting operating records as well as applications for registering certain equipment and a change in facility ownership, said AQMD.

When reached for comment, GKN reiterated its earlier statement about working to resolve current issues at the facility that led to evacuations but did not address any previous violations.

CNN has contacted GKN for comment on the previous violation and settlement.

The air outside of the evacuation zone should be safe, Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, the Orange County Health Officer, said in a Saturday update.

Exposure to MMA can cause “significant irritation” to the lungs and nasal passages, as well as dizziness and nausea, Chinsio-Kwong said. There are not many documented cases of human interaction, so it is unpredictable what the effects of a potential explosion could be on the population, she said, encouraging people to stay out of the evacuation zone for that reason.

“We’re going into unique times and we have limited information,” Chinsio-Kwong said.

The chemical, which is not currently detected in the air, can produce a fruit-like scent, although smelling it doesn’t mean you’ve gotten enough exposure to have symptoms, she said in another update.

The EPA is leading air monitoring efforts as part of the unified command team, while the Orange County Health Care Agency is leading public health response, the South Coast Air Quality Management District told CNN.

The EPA told CNN it immediately responded to the scene and helped check the 10 air monitors in the area, all which are currently showing that the chemical has not been detected. It is also installing 20 additional monitors, according to their statement.

Authorities initially responded to a vapor release from the tank containing MMA on Thursday, Orange County Fire Authority Interim Fire Chief TJ McGovern said Friday. One of the three tanks at the site had increased in temperature and activated a relief valve and overhead sprinklers to try to cool the tank, he said. The other two tanks have either been neutralized with a chemical agent or aren’t at risk.

Evacuation orders were issued for the area Thursday, but they were lifted that night after the vapor conditions improved, he said. As crews tried to remove and contain the product from the one tank, they realized the tank had a damaged valve so the chemical couldn’t be removed, which caused local authorities to reinstate the evacuation orders, he said.

The Orange County Fire Authority told CNN earlier that 79,000 residents were impacted.

Miguel Loo, who lives with his fiancée inside the evacuation zone in the city of Westminster, told CNN Saturday he and his fiancée’s mother had been experiencing headaches since Thursday. The family spent Friday night in the car before finding a hotel room.

Stanton resident Van Ly described the heavy traffic he, his wife and their two hairless cats faced trying to evacuate on Friday.

“It took so much time driving because of bad traffic” both from people hitting the road for holiday weekend travel and “a long line of cars (as) more people had to leave their houses” to evacuate, Ly told CNN. “There were helicopters, drone noise. Crazy!”

“It’s been chaos,” Jacqueline Riegos, who also evacuated from Stanton, told KCAL/KCBS . “Nobody can really give us any details about what’s going on. … And we don’t know how long this is going to be.”

Ly said he and his wife are also experiencing symptoms.

“I forgot to close the window during the Thursday night, and I regret it,” he said. “My throat and the inside of my nose feel sore, and my wife felt dizzy Friday night.”

Concialdi said “nothing is toxic, nothing is harmful right now in the area.”

“People are concerned, and then they get worried, but it’s not harmful,” he said.

McGovern emphasized there was no vapor coming out of the tank as of Friday, and authorities are continuing to monitor the air quality.

The manufacturer’s response team had tried everything they could but couldn’t mitigate the crisis, Covey said Friday.

Democratic Congressman Derek Tran, whose district includes Garden Grove, said on Friday he had spoken to GKN Aerospace leadership and urged the company “to take full responsibility for the panic and disruption that tens of thousands of residents are currently experiencing.”

Authorities warned there were many factors that could contribute to the tank’s demise, which is why they expanded the evacuation orders to such a large area. “People need to get out of their houses and get into a safe space because when this thing goes, depending on the wind direction it’s going, we cannot control the weather,” Covey said.

“This is highly volatile, it’s highly toxic and it’s highly flammable,” Covey said.