{"id":478929,"date":"2026-09-29T03:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T03:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478929\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T03:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T03:16:09","slug":"months-after-an-oc-chemical-emergency-locals-feel-unsafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478929\/","title":{"rendered":"Months after an OC chemical emergency locals feel unsafe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>GARDEN GROVE, Calif. \u2014 Months after a Memorial Day weekend chemical emergency in Garden Grove that forced tens of thousands of residents to temporarily evacuate, locals said they are left with unanswered questions about their safety and what\u2019s happening next.<\/p>\n<p>Dwight Hua lives within the same square block of GKN Aerospace, where officials say on May 21 the company\u2019s tank\u2019s refrigeration system malfunctioned and caused the methyl methacrylate inside to heat up quickly.<\/p>\n<p>It is a substance used to make plastics.<\/p>\n<p>GKN had written in an Aug. 26 update that it had targeted Sept. 28 as a date to return to full production.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGKN is targeting a phased resumption of operations over the days and weeks ahead, subject to all necessary permits, and working with relevant officials and experts to do so,\u201d the company said in a statement sent this month. \u201cThe gradual return to full production beyond this will be done with safety as top priority and in accordance with a court-approved safety plan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein addressed the company\u2019s operations in a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-jHZzE3RE3w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> video<\/a> posted on GGTV\u2019s YouTube page.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to be very clear. GKN\u2019s Garden Grove facility cannot and will not be fully resuming operations today, Sept. 28.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added that the safety plan from GKN, which needs to be submitted to the court, has not happened yet. She also called on the company to make good on promises to pay reimbursements to affected residents and hold a community event to provide updates.<\/p>\n<p>Hua said the city could do more to hold GKN accountable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe City Council has a lot of power on land use, zoning. Even when they\u2019re doing these investigations, they should have passed a moratorium to pause any sort of new and existing facility so they can\u2019t expand when there\u2019s such a crisis that has happened and affected our community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said he still feels scared to be at his home, which is a 20-minute walk from the GKN facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GARDEN GROVE, Calif. \u2014 Months after a Memorial Day weekend chemical emergency in Garden Grove that forced tens&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2997,7,68504,1492,5999,5996],"class_list":["post-478929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-app-public-safety","tag-california","tag-jo-kwon","tag-public-safety","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}