While 34,000 residents were allowed to return home after a toxic chemical leak at a aerospace company in Garden Grove, Orange County fire officials say they’re not ready to allow the other 16,000 evacuated residents to return home just yet.
Those who live closest to the GKN Aerospace plant will remain under evacuation orders.
“So the threat has been greatly reduced, but with that there still remains the potential for it to catch fire, for a chemical spill leak or for a smaller explosion,” OC Fire Authority Capt. Wayhowe Wong said.
He says they have been successful in keeping the tank cool, but they can’t transfer the toxic chemical out of the tank because the valves are broken.
OC Fire Authority spokesperson Greg Barta said in a morning update that the temperature of the tank was at 92 degrees.
Some residents who were forced out of their homes are worried that its still a dangerous situation.
“You can't get anywhere,” one resident told KNX News’ Jon Baird. “You can't do anything, you know, like you're basically just a sitting goose and you're just waiting in pending doom, and it's not cool.”
As for security, Garden Grove Police Sgt Nick Jensen said only one person has been arrested for theft. He added that after thousands of people were allowed home Monday night, their department received no calls at all about break-ins.
Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who represents the area, told L.A.’s Morning News it's important to look into the aerospace company to see if it broke any rules.
“I will be working with the different agencies, whether it's the city of Garden Grove, whether it's South Coast Air Quality Management District, which I'm a governing board member of, whatever agency that issues permits to this facility, we wanna talk to them,” she said. “We wanna understand, what are those permits? Have they been, you know, enforced, etc. My hope is let's learn how this happened and then also put in policy and procedure to make sure it doesn't happen again.”
She added that she’s working to get financial assistance for those impacted by the evacuations.
“We are working with the federal government and also the states and…I asked this morning in the briefing is to get a one-pager for residents and businesses who have been impacted by this crisis, so we will come out shortly with a one-pager to try to assist,” she said. “We are appreciative of President Trump and him calling for the federal emergency declaration yesterday. That's what's going to help us, and we're trying to gather all the information so that we have all the right facts and information and easy access for our residents and businesses. “
She said she's not sure when the money will be available.
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