A damaged chemical tank at an aerospace facility in suburban Southern California appeared to have stabilized on Tuesday after a harrowing Memorial Day weekend during which firefighters worked to stave off a potentially catastrophic explosion or spill.
But the danger has not completely passed. About 16,000 of the nearly 50,000 people who had evacuated during the height of the crisis were still awaiting a signal on Tuesday that it was safe to return home.
Residents were forced to evacuate late last week after firefighters determined that a pressurized container containing a toxic substance had overheated and was poised to burst at GKN Aerospace’s manufacturing plant in Orange County. GKN, which is based in Britain, produces components for military and civilian aircraft.
The crisis, which officials had feared would end either in a catastrophic blast or a devastating hazardous waste spill, drew worldwide attention and prompted state and federal authorities to declare an emergency.
Emergency responders and scientific experts raced to cool down the bulging tank and safeguard surrounding communities. They doused the tank for days with water sprayed from fire hoses and opened more than half a dozen evacuation sites in a matter of hours on a holiday weekend.
By Monday, firefighters reported that the tank’s temperature had started to drop and that it was safe for most of the evacuees to begin returning. On Tuesday, Greg Barta, an Orange County Fire Authority spokesman, reported that the temperature inside the tank, previously in the triple digits, had dropped to about 92 degrees and was holding steady.
“There’s still a risk of fire, and there’s still a risk of a potential spill,” the fire authority’s interim chief, TJ McGovern, told residents at a community meeting on Tuesday. “But once we know that the temperature is stabilized, we will be taking the fire risk off the table.”
As the fire risk decreases, he said, so will the size of the evacuation zone.
Some 16,000 residents in the immediate vicinity of the plant were told to stay away as a precaution against a potentially smaller spill or explosion than originally feared.
Mr. Barta said that the authorities were trying to get everyone home as soon as possible, noting that residents of at least two communities, Stanton and Garden Grove, continued to be displaced. “Our goal is to do that as soon as it is safe to do so,” he said.
The situation has prompted members of the communities around the plant to demand accountability from GKN and the local authorities.
“The imminent threat has been taken out of the equation, but this raises serious questions about the extent to which the government allowed this facility to expand,” said Carlos Perea, executive director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant & Economic Justice, one of several local organizations that called for the relocation of GKN Aerospace from Garden Grove, the city where it has operated for decades.
“This was a military manufacturing facility with dangerous equipment operating literally in the middle of working-class neighborhoods.”
In a letter to GKN, Representative Derek T. Tran, the area’s congressman, called on company executives in Britain to meet with his constituents in Orange County.
“Lives have been upended and livelihoods disrupted,” he wrote. “A community cannot thrive while living in fear of potential hazards in its own backyard.”
At Tuesday’s community meeting, which the congressman convened, residents asked how they should comfort their frightened children and get reimbursed for lost business, whether they needed to proactively wear protective masks and whether the crisis would affect their insurance coverage.
Separately, at least one lawsuit was filed over the weekend by residents who claimed that the aerospace company had negligently stored and released the chemical in the tank, methyl methacrylate. Even short-term exposure to the chemical, which is used to make resins and acrylic plastics, can cause skin and eye irritation and respiratory issues.
Local and state officials have pledged to investigate both the episodes and complaints that hotels were illegally overcharging evacuees.
Even the upcoming California primary election was complicated by the crisis.
“I left my ballot on my desk,” Minh Hoang, 24, an evacuee who lives just around the corner from the chemical plant, said as he waited for help at a pop-up voting tent near the Orange County Registrar of Voters. The impromptu site was prepared to assist evacuees in English, Spanish and Vietnamese, and its staff could issue and receive ballots during this last week of voting, which ends June 2.
In a statement, GKN, whose executives did not appear at the Tuesday afternoon meeting, pointed out that “there have been no leaks or contamination” and that the company was continuing to work with state and local authorities. The company added, “We apologize for the ongoing disruption this incident is causing, and our priority remains the safety of our neighbors and our community.”
James Everett, 71, a retired aerospace engineer who lives in Garden Grove, was one of the residents who was unable to return home on Tuesday.
He showed off his plush accommodations — in the back of his Chevy Suburban. He had sleeping bags, shower curtains to block out the sun and battery-powered lanterns hanging from the corners. He didn’t want to sleep in the evacuation center, he said, because his family had caught Covid-19 in a gym during the pandemic.
After that experience, he designed the sleeping suite in the Suburban. This time, a stranger brought him a mattress pad to put under the sleeping bags.
“We’re comfortable,” Mr. Everett said. “It just gets cold at night.”
Hector Gil, 22, of Garden Grove, tried to remain upbeat as he camped with his family of eight, two neighbors and a dog on the grass outside the parking lot of Freedom Hall, which was being used as an evacuation center in Fountain Valley. His family home is one block away from the chemical plant, he said, adding that the family had not known that it was so close.
Mr. Gil said his family and their friends all slept in their cars for the first two days of the evacuation. Then, on Sunday, Mr. Gil’s friends brought tents. By Tuesday morning, the group had acquired four tents, nine chairs and a long folding table, and the members had begun to relax as it became clear that the Red Cross had stocked the evacuation center with food, toiletries and mobile showers.
“At first, when we got here, we were nervous and scared,” said Mr. Gil, who works as a personal shopper at a local Walmart. But now that his group had settled in and had assurances of food and temporary shelter, he said, it was — almost — like a vacation.
“It’s peaceful,” he said. “Nice.”
Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.
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