20,000 evacuated in Southern California chemical leak as officials say tank "is going to fail"
Southern California officials have expanded an evacuation zone in several Orange County cities over a toxic chemical tank that they say is "actively in crisis."
Updated on: May 23, 2026 / 2:25 AM EDT / CBS LA
More than 44,000 people were evacuated in multiple Southern California cities on Friday after officials warned a leaking toxic chemical tank at an Orange County aerospace facility would inevitably fail and potentially explode.
The industrial tank at the Garden Grove facility is estimated to contain 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, a "highly volatile" and "highly flammable" toxic substance used in the production of plastics, said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Craig Covey.
"This is gonna happen unless some brilliant guy behind me here figures out how we can mitigate this incident," Covey said at a news conference Friday afternoon. "This thing is gonna fail. We don't know when."
Orange County officials expanded evacuation orders on Friday to homes in a one-mile radius in several cities, including Garden Grove, Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster. Evacuation orders were issued for people living in the zone that included:
"This is as bad as I've ever seen," Covey said while speaking with CBS LA. "This is real, don't mess around. ... I've been in the fire service for 32 years and it's the most significantly dangerous event I've ever been a part of."