A night of fear, confusion as thousands flee their homes in O.C. amid chemical crisis
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It was a night of anxiety and questions as people across a wide swath of central Orange County fled their homes due to the risk of a chemical explosion at a Garden Grove aerospace firm.Some residents went to local evacuation shelters while others opted to stay with family and friends.Among the many questions surrounding the incident, two felt the most urgent on Friday night: How long will the evacuation last? And how safe is their community?Families evacuated from their homes milled about the lobby and parking lot of the Cypress Community Center late Friday waiting for any updates about the leaking chemical tank that sent them fleeing earlier that day.Some stayed glued to their phones.
Others took inventory of the hastily packed belongings in their trunks or snoozed as comfortably as they could in plastic chairs at the evacuation site.Jude Thomas and his family were some of the first people evacuated on Thursday afternoon when firefighters first responded to the plant following a report of an issue with the tanks.They were briefly allowed to return to their apartment that evening, only to receive instructions to leave again early Friday.Thomas has lived less than a mile from GKN Aerospace for about six years and had never given much thought to their proximity.His son had raised concerns about whether it was safe to live that close to the facility shortly after they moved in, but he dismissed them, he said.“Everything will change, for sure, once this is done,” Thomas said.“We will think about moving out from there.”A leaking chemical tank at GKN Aerospace is going to fail or explode in an “unprecedented” event that triggered evacuation orders on Friday for thousands of Orange County residents.
By Friday afternoon, evacuations around the failing tank in Garden Grove expanded to include tens of thousands of residents in six Orange County cities: Garden Grove, Cypress, S...