Orange County officials on Monday evening reduced the evacuation zone in the Garden Grove chemical crisis to about 16,000 people, after nearly 50,000 had been under orders earlier in the day. The new evacuation zone Garden Grove boundary now runs along Orangewood Avenue to the north, Dale Street to the east, Knott Street to the west and Garden Grove Boulevard to the south.
Orange County Fire Authority officials said Monday that the threat of a massive chemical explosion had been eliminated, and that the BLEVE was off the table. The damaged tank had cooled to 93 degrees, a sign officials said showed the situation was moving in the right direction. Even so, evacuation orders remained in place after the zone was reduced.
That shift gave the first clear sign of relief in a crisis that has forced more than 40,000 people from their homes over four days. On Sunday, officials announced an overnight operation to confirm that pressure in the tank had been released and that the BLEVE threat was gone. They had described two possible outcomes for the damaged chemical tank at a Garden Grove aerospace firm: it could explode or it could leak out.
Firefighters overnight detected a potential crack in the tank, and officials said that crack may have been relieving some of the pressure inside it. Craig Covey said, “That is incredible positive news as we turn the corner of this incident,” while Orange County Fire Authority spokesman TJ McGovern said, “the BLEVE is off the table” and described it as “the worst-case catastrophic event that we’ve been talking about.”
The hard part now is not whether the most feared scenario has passed, but how quickly the area can reopen safely. Amir El-Farra told residents, “Please understand that we are doing this for your safety, and we will continue to work diligently so yet you will be able to return home hopefully soon.” For families still waiting to go back, the answer is finally moving from whether they can come home to when.
