In Freedom Hall in Fountain Valley, where officials began erecting cots in the middle of the night on May 21 so 50,000 people could be temporarily relocated there, First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen brought together a wide range of local and regional officials this week to issue a formal “thank you.”
From fire and police officials to park supervisors, city clerks, mayors, and staff members who had worked with little sleep for five days, Nguyen haphazardly gathered them together Sept. 30 to tell them, “You’re the best of the best,” she said, “the best of humanity.”
On that day in May, around 3:30 p.m., Nguyen and other key officials learned that an industrial storage tank holding methyl methacrylate (MMA) at a GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove began overheating and venting vapors.
Almost immediately, a coalition of firefighting and emergency officials coordinated by the Orange County Fire Authority issued mandatory evacuation orders affecting roughly 50,000 residents across parts of Garden Grove, Anaheim, Cypress, Stanton, Buena Park, and Westminster…