Santa Catalina sounds like a red herring. A freighter there would stand out among the yachts like an goony bird among sparrows.
I'm going to take the guy's word at face value and suggest someplace like Portland, Oregon. No oil refineries but lots of natural gas storage tanks in northwest Portland, right on the banks of the Williamette River. Ought to make one hell of a fireball.
And then there's the Trojan Nuclear Plant on the Columbia River. It is closed down and all the spent fuel has been removed but hey, how would they know that!
Actually, with the left wing goonies' work at disarming the civilian population here in Kalifornia, this might be one of the "safer" places for them to work.
Mexico. Middle of the night, small shore craft shuttles them to beach. They disperse into small groups (4 or 5) and eventually cross the border with the rest of the illegals. Lots of these M.E. men could pass for Mexican.
If the terrorists blow the Trojan Plant up, they would do us all a favor. I'm tired of looking at it and being reminded of all the taxpayer money that went into it and how the environmentalists and no-nucs-here crowd were successful in shutting it down and creating a huge, non-functional eyesore.
Didn't mind it when it was working - functionality is a thing of beauty. Now its just lots and lots of dead concrete.