Residents near California chemical tank forced to flee: "You're freaking out"

U.S. California residents near dangerous chemical tank forced to flee homes: "You're freaking out" By Lana Zak Lana Zak Anchor, CBS News 24/7; Correspondent Lana Zak is an anchor for CBS News 24/7 and a CBS News national correspondent. Read Full Bio Lana Zak May 25, 2026 / 12:52 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Cypress, California — Fifty thousand Southern California residents remain under evacuation orders Monday after emergency crews raced to prevent a tank holding a volatile industrial chemical from exploding at an aerospace facility in Garden Grove. Officials announced Monday morning that they believed they turned a corner but that a threat still remained.The threat centered on a tank containing methyl methacrylate, or MMA, at a facility operated by GKN Aerospace. Officials worried the chemical could undergo a dangerous "thermal runaway" reaction, causing temperatures and pressure inside the tank to rise to potentially catastrophic levels.Evacuees face hardship, uncertaintyEntire neighborhoods were evacuated over the Memorial Day weekend as authorities warned that, in the worst-case scenario, the tank could explode and trigger additional blasts in nearby containers.For displaced residents, the uncertainty has become its own crisis."We don't know how much longer it'll be," said Jackie Urquiza, who evacuated with her 7-year-old son Kyle from their home about a block from the facility. "Now we need clothes, and we're going to run out of medication."Urquiza said she had no idea dangerous chemicals were stored so close to her neighborhood."We absolutely did not know this was near our home at all," she said. Urquiza told CBS News that she was awoken at 6 a.m. to sirens and first responders at her door."At that moment, you can't think very well and you just pack whatever you can, like medications or clothes, but you don't have enough time to pack what you really need because you can't think at the moment," she said. "You know, you're freaking out." Jackie...