Transcription
In California, 50,000 people are under evacuation orders after concerns that a huge tank filled with toxic chemicals at an aerospace facility could explode. Now, officials say the biggest threat has been eliminated, but the crisis isn't over. ABC's Alex Stone joins me now from Cyprus, California. Alex, great to see you. It appears there is some good news as crews continue to work at that site. What can you tell us?
>> Yeah, Stephanie, some very good news. They finally got firefighters up to the tank overnight in what they described as being a very high-risk operation getting firefighters in there. They got up on the tank and they confirmed that a crack on the top of it that it had allowed the uh pressure inside the tank to vent out the top of it, bringing down the threat of a catastrophic explosion. Now, doesn't mean that there are no threats around any longer of vapor or of leak or a much smaller explosion, but things are looking a whole lot better here right now. They hope to get the evacuation perimeter down a bit in the next couple of hours. It remains in place right now.
>> That is certainly some good news. And Alex, what are you hearing from residents who did evacuate the area already?
>> Well, they badly want to get back in. They are waiting for some even better news that that the evacuation perimeter goes away, but they are not there yet. Hopefully later on today that firefighters will be able to get to that point. Remember that as all of this was going on, the reaction of this chemical, MMA, acrylic used in plastics. In this case, think of the canopy of a fighter jet. That that's a type of acrylic that it was being used for. and that that as the the chemical reaction was going on, the the pressure was building up inside that tank. But it has now relieved all of that and and that should help out quite a bit.
>> Hopefully it does. All right, Alex, thank you so