40,000 evacuate California city as chemical tank leaking toxins could explode

An industrial emergency at a Garden Grove aerospace facility has forced roughly 40,000 Orange County, California, residents from their homes and shuttered local schools, with authorities warning that a catastrophic explosion could occur at any moment. 

On Thursday, a storage tank containing between 6,000 and 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate overheated and began leaking vapors into the air at the GKN Aerospace facility on Western Avenue in Garden Grove, a city in Orange County. GKN Aerospace manufactures parts for commercial and military aircraft. 

Authorities then ordered 40,000 people to evacuate but were lifted that night when crews believed they were making progress. However, on Friday morning, the order was sent out again due to "changing conditions,” per KTLA. The evacuation zone was expanded to create a roughly one-mile buffer area around the tank. 

Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey told reporters there were "literally two options remaining: one, the tank fails and spills a total of about 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of very bad chemicals into the parking lot and that area, or two, the tank goes into a thermal runaway and blows up, affecting the tanks around it that have fuel or chemicals in them as well." 

Methyl methacrylate is highly toxic, volatile, and flammable, and is used in the production of acrylic plastics. OCFA Division Chief Nick Freeman warned, “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." 

No injuries or deaths have been reported. Evacuation centers were established at locations in Garden Grove and Cypress as crews continued working through the night.