• Officials had ordered evacuations in Garden Grove on Thursday after a chemical storage tank at an aerospace plant overheated. Thousands of residents still are not able to return to their homes.
• Officials say they will keep monitoring the air for several months and checking the sewer and storm drains for damage.
Thousands of people who live near a damaged hazardous chemical tank in Southern California still can’t return home, even as officials say the risk of a catastrophic explosion had largely passed.
About 16,000 of roughly 50,000 evacuees are still waiting for the all clear. The tank contains methyl methacrylate, which is highly flammable.
Health officials have assured residents that there was no contamination or and that no fumes were released.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
An Orange County Fire Authority firefighter instructs a photographer to leave the GKN Aerospace evacuation area.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Nathalie Bouriche of Anaheim sits on a cot inside Freedom Hall in Fountain Valley, where she spent the night, along with her son, Abde Atti, seated behind her, after being forced to evacuate.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The crisis began Thursday, when firefighters responded to GKN Aerospace after a 34,000-gallon tank containing methyl methacrylate, an industrial chemical used in plastics and manufacturing, started to fail.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Evacuees take shelter at Freedom Hall in Fountain Valley, where the American Red Cross set up an evacuation center.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
A drone image show the proximity of residential homes to the storage tanks at the GKN Aerospace facility.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Henry Nguyen sits on a cot inside his tent outside the Freedom Hall shelter. The Nguyen’s have lived one block from the GKN Aerospace facility since 2004.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
Evacuees Maria Medina, 40, left, of Westminster, with children Mayrin Martinez, 4, and Armando Martinez, 9, pass the time Monday at Mile Square Regional Park. They had been sleeping in their car since Saturday because there was no more space for them in the Freedom Hall evacuation center.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Darleene Berrelleza and Angel Beltran and their cat, Felix, returned home to Stanton on Monday. They had evacuated to a family member’s home in Lake Elsinore.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
