Posted on 05/24/2026 1:27:44 PM PDT by Red Badger
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency on Saturday evening as experts warned that the chemical tank that is overheating in Orange County could explode.
40,000 residents in Orange County, California, were evacuated on Friday amid a chemical leak at an aerospace facility.
On Thursday, a valve overheated on a 34,000-gallon tank used to make plastics.
Authorities said the tank, located in Garden Grove, could either explode or spill thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals.
Several evacuation centers were opened; however, many residents are still refusing to leave their homes.
On Friday evening, Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief and Unified Incident Commander Craig Covey said the temperature of the tank had come down.
“It’s down to a temperature around 61 degrees, with 50 being its happy place,” Craig Covey said.
However, Covey walked back his statement on Saturday and said drones were measuring the temperature outside of the tank.
As of Saturday, the tank's internal temperature is around 100 degrees, up from 77 degrees on Friday.
On Sunday, TJ McGovern, the Interim Fire Chief for the Orange County Fire Authority, said firefighters discovered a crack in the tank late Saturday night, which could be relieving some of the pressure.
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“California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency on Saturday evening as experts warned that the chemical tank that is overheating in Orange County could explode.” You didn’t slather on too much hair gel did you Gavin?
This was accidental. What if terrorists went around doing deliberate sabotage?
RE: You didn’t slather on too much hair gel did you Gavin?
The declaration was delayed a half hour. Newsom happened to walk past a plate glass display and stopped to admire himself in the reflection.
> This was accidental. What if terrorists went around doing deliberate sabotage?
Is there any evidence of that either way?
Yellowstone would Be Bigger!
$/
Very unlikely in this case.... It’s in a protected area, they’d have to know exactly what to do, they’d have to interfere with multiple safety measures and do it in a way that monitoring didn’t see.
They’re not THAT smart.
There is reporting that they had a failure in a pressure relief valve. But that alone would not be enough... they must have had a failure in their polymerization inhibition system.
“residents not leaving” is NOT smart. If this thing does a BLEVE, there will be a ton of damage in a 1-mile radius.
“... a valve overheated ...”
-
Lordy, people are dumb.
That makes me feel better.
British owned ?
Google AI because the article is lacking:
The chemical in the failing tank is methyl methacrylate (MMA).The incident began at a GKN Aerospace manufacturing facility in Garden Grove, California. The tank, holding around 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of the volatile chemical, began to overheat, bulge, and off-gas, prompting a state of emergency declaration by Governor Gavin Newsom and mandatory evacuations.Methyl methacrylate is highly flammable and is used in the fabrication of plastics and resins. Exposure to its vapors can cause respiratory issues, neurological symptoms, and irritation to the skin, eyes, and throat. For further updates on this developing situation, you can monitor local coverage from outlets such as ABC7 News or NBC News.
Why is the tank getting hotter? Unless there is a chemical reaction going on in the tank this should not be happening. I suspect someone made a massive error of what they put into the tank.
The other side of the coin is looters like in the Palisades fire.
“Plastics, my boy! Plastics are our future!”
Left unsaid is why people don’t want to evacuate. Looters, shooters, Frankenstein cooters…. California no longer protects property.
Methylmethacrylate (if I recall the correct monomer) escaping from a leak might polymerize into an effective stop-leak.
There is a theory that the last time a supervolcano blew up it nearly wiped out the human species .
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