After six days of trying to avoid an overheating chemical tank erupting into a giant fireball or spilling thousands of gallons of toxic substances at an aerospace facility in Garden Grove, Orange County leaders announced Tuesday that the risk of catastrophic explosion had largely been eliminated.
Local authorities lifted a large section of the evacuation zone surrounding GKN Aerospace and allowed tens of thousands of residents to return.
Firefighters sprayed more than 9 million gallons of water onto a piping-hot tank of flammable methyl methacrylate (MMA), drastically bringing down the vessel’s temperature — but not before the high temperatures resulted in high pressure and a crack in the side of the tank, which acted as a relief valve…