Welcome And Incident Setup

Alex Datig 0:03

In my opinion, as a criminal justice major who studies emergency management, this is a textbook case for uh officials being responsible and protecting their community in a situation that is just unbelievably dangerous.

Tom Mueller 0:21

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. On this podcast, we talk all things crisis management with an emphasis on crisis communications. I'm Tom Mueller. Thanks for joining us. On our show today, we're going to do another deep dive into the chemical incident that happened in Orange County, California over the memorial holiday weekend. And our guest today is Alex Datig. Alex is a journalist who covered this activity or covered this incident on the ground and brings a different kind of perspective to the whole response and how communications were managed. Alex, tell us a little bit about yourself and your publication.

Alex Datig 1:09

Okay, Tom, it's really, really good to be with you. I'm so glad you ched in. I was looking at your podcast, and uh uh crisis management is something that is very important to address, especially in situations like the one that we've just seen in Garden Grove. So I'm so glad you timed in. It's good to good to rub some elbows with uh experts like yourself who really understand crisis management. Um, so thank you. Uh I'm a journalist and I'm a videographer. I'm credentialed with the Los Angeles Police Department and with the LA County Sheriff's Department. I've had front page index for 11 years and I work on a lot of different stories that uh gain national news attention. I work with several different networks uh and distributors. So, but this particular incident uh really caught my eye because um I was in the Palisades Fire. I was on PCH during the Palisades Fire. And um I've I've lived in LA 37 years, so I've been through the Northridge earthquake, I've been through the LA riots, I've been through the major stress tests here in Los Angeles. So I saw that Orange County was really experiencing a massive, massive crisis that affected the community in ways that that I had studied as a criminal justice major, and uh I'm also certified with uh uh the Department Department of Homeland Security uh in in interagency communications. So for me, this was something where I could really kind of zero in on my skills, but um uh the intensity of the situation cannot be overstated.

Tom Mueller 2:45

Alex, you first came to my attention uh because I was very closely monitoring communications uh across that incident, and I saw some of your uh live reporting uh uh from different locations just showing people what was happening on the ground in different uh loc in different spots. Uh and so uh you were a really good source of information, you know, of current information in a an environment, you know, where it's hard to really assess and understand what's happening

Guest Background And On-The-Ground View

Tom Mueller 3:20

right now. And uh that's why I wanted to have a chat with you on the podcast here, because my sense is that the uh the unified command and the incident management team did a really good job communicating with the community. Um but uh you were on the ground there and actually interviewed PIO and were out looking at the some of the press conferences and that. I just really wanted to get your assessment. You know, how did you think communications went overall uh between the civil authorities and the community?

Alex Datig 3:56

Um well I think I think that uh the communications to the public uh went as well as it could as they wanted to keep the public safe. They didn't want to they didn't want anybody to going in going into a hot zone with a blast zone and and all of that type of thing. So I thought getting the community out of there was really good. Uh I did, however, notice there was a lot of homeless people still roaming around, uh, even though the entire area had been evacuated. So that's one element uh that that I saw that that was not uh that was not addressed. These people were just sitting around and could have easily uh become victims of of this of an explosion had there been one or uh you know a chemical leak. So so that's the only part that I really saw where that was sorely missing. Um also um the shelter space kept running out fairly quickly. So all of those things were handled uh in a way that was was very fast. I think that had there been an accident, I think we would have looked at something like a Hurricane Katrina type of situation where people would have just been out of everything and just, you know, not eating for days, maybe even, you know, that kind of thing hadn't been as catastrophic as they said, because there really wasn't uh FEMA on the ground. I didn't see that. Uh there wasn't um uh there wasn't a National Guard. I I also noticed that uh the barricades that were put up around the uh perimeter of the evacuation uh order zone was the barricades were not guarded, some of them, and it was very uh actually easy to access uh the site where the tank was, which was why I was able to get there for three days. So um I would have liked to have seen more restraint there. So that's one thing I saw where it was like, no, the evacuation zone was not airtight, although where the police were stationed, it was very they were very good uh at where they were stationed,

Evacuation Gaps And Shelter Strain

Alex Datig 6:05

but but it was very easy to get around those without feeling like you had breached an area.

Tom Mueller 6:11

Well, I was pleased to hear the police chief and uh Chief Covey mentioned that they had put additional, you know, police officers patrolling the evacuated areas to keep people's belongings safe, keep their homes safe. So they were taking some action in response to that. But Alex, as a journalist on the ground there, I wonder, um, did you feel like you were getting the information you needed and wanted to communicate out? And what were your key channels for getting that information?

Alex Datig 6:47

Well, the best information that I got was firsthand, which was a video that I was able to take and that I was able to go to the zone. I the first day that I went in there, uh I was I was not allowed to drive in, but Garden Grove PD told me that I had the permission to walk in. And that was during the worst time. Okay. Now I know as a journalist, uh having been in the Palisades fire and having reported uh during the worst time of that fire, I knew that I went that I entered at my own risk. I'm not married, I don't have kids, uh, I've done this before, but I've done it before in a in LA County where I know the officials, where the police chief knows me, where the sheriff knows me, where the DA knows me, and uh where I have those relationships. What was different from Orange County is I did not have those relationships. So what I saw firsthand was a little bit difficult for me to get the information I wanted, like for example, the tank temperature, right? They said, well, 100 degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius, big difference. Uh that's not a question we we really have an answer to. And it and it makes all the difference in the world because when you're talking about a thermal runaway and you're talking about a four to one ratio um um expansion of matter, uh, when you're, you know, the blast and the pressure is a lot different from centigrade, you know, Celsius to Fahrenheit. So that's something that I was very curious about that that I didn't feel like I could ask because you just everyone was very tight-lipped, they were not talking. And then also the first day that I went in, which I think it was a Friday, uh I did experience um a little bit of uh I experienced an immediate headache when I entered the when I entered the zone, when I got close to the tank. And the headache got worse overnight. Um, and when I woke up, it was really bad, and I did have a chemical taste. And it's like I bit into a bar of soap, and it was pretty bad. And I tried to chew gum and eat a bunch of things, and and and you know, there was this constant talk of there was no leak, there was no chemical exposure, but we then found out there was a crack in the tank. Well, and the pressure was released, right? So if there was a crack in the tank and the pressure was released, what exactly came out? So for them to say there was nothing there, uh I I I beg to differ.

Tom Mueller 9:26

That that was the one statement I really questioned. Uh as one of the county health department officials said that there was no leak, there were no vapors released, and all of that, which sort of is counterintuitive when you have a high pressure vessel that suddenly depressurizes, you know, that steam and and those contents inside that drum went somewhere, right? So that was that was the one.

Alex Datig 9:52

How much of it went and how much pressure was there? You know,

Access, Measurements, And Exposure Questions

Alex Datig 9:55

these are all answers we're gonna get in the after action report, which will be watered down if you'll pardon the pun.

Tom Mueller 10:02

So but they they did have air monitoring, you know, active air monitoring going on uh around the facility, right? Now I don't know you know how tightly grouped that was, but you know, these are professional air quality and health department folks, so you figure they know how to do some air sampling in the area, and so we you know, we trust their credibility.

Alex Datig 10:26

Yes.

Tom Mueller 10:27

And that's so that's a you know, a buffer, a safety buffer that we're getting. Um, but you know, for them to say, hey, there was no emissions whatsoever um was was kind of odd.

Alex Datig 10:40

Well, we don't know what they were sampling for, too, Tom. It's like you know, you can say, oh, our air AQMD is doing all kinds of air monitoring. Yeah, but what exactly are they sampling for? So that's the other question, and that's an answer that I did not get when I asked.

Tom Mueller 10:53

Mm-hmm. Fair point. Because this MMA chemical is probably not something they're actively monitoring for, but would it show up on some of their normal and routine tests? You're right, that's a great question. That uh not sure the answer to that one yet. Hey, Alex, did you participate in any of the press conferences? And um, I was able to watch those remotely uh from my location here in Houston, but I was curious if you attended any of those, if you thought they went well, or just what was your assessment as a journalist, you know, standing in front of them?

Alex Datig 11:33

Uh I think that, yes, I went to uh I went to the two main news conferences, the one uh where um the the fire chief McGovern, the first one, where he he said that um you know all that that they had been able to eliminate uh the threat of explosion. And then the news conference the next day uh where all the officials gathered. Uh I was up for 36 hours just waiting for that final news conference. Um, and I was at that news conference as well. Now, the first news conference where Chief McGovern was there, you know, I had seen that Lee Zeldon, EPA chief uh Lee Zeldin had said that he was looking for the number to become 85 degrees when they had reached, I think, 90, 93 degrees. Uh and so um I the Lee Zeldon early on had said, you know, he thinks that he thought that the threat of explosion was minimal and that it was probably going to be either a chemical spill or that they would be able to neutralize whatever was in the tank, meaning the MMA. So my question was, you know, would they be able to bring the temperature down to 85% on that day? And they were not able to answer that question. Now, um, again, you know, I think that they were really worried because the temperature gauge on that tank only went to 100 degrees. So they didn't know if it would go beyond that. And what I did learn was uh that the the number that was most worrisome was 100 and between 125 and 140 degrees, where they would see the thermal runaway and they would see the subsequent explosion. So when when they realized the tank would only go to 100 degrees, they didn't know whether it was going up or down. So that's why they had to go in and manually uh take the temperature of that tank, which I don't know how they did that. I know they had uh drones that had thermal capabilities that they flew over, which how which is how they discovered the crack in the tank. They didn't know that until the thermal drone was able to find it.

Tom Mueller 13:33

Right. So um, yeah, so overall press conferences you thought

Press Conferences And Technical Uncertainty

Tom Mueller 13:40

were were well managed, and uh, you know, I think that first one had five speakers, the the last one um had nine different speakers, you know, and uh and I really question the utility of a press conference where you have nine speakers, but this is you know, you can see the ramp up of the political aspects of the response uh as you as it drags on. More and more politicians, elected officials want to have their two minutes in that limelight because that then becomes a video clip for a campaign or for your website, whatever it is, but you get that visibility. And you know, God bless the PIOs who have to organize this and get everybody lined up uh to do that.

Alex Datig 14:29

So the PIOs were very straightforward. They were very straightforward, as straightforward as they could be, uh, especially thing with the crack in the tank. You know, there was a PIO who said there were several cracks, then he said there was one crack, and then there was some inconsistencies there. Uh, but but the uh so he he had made some misstatements in one way, but then corrected himself in another, and he was kind of called out for that. But he really did the best he could. I think I think everyone there did the best they could.

Tom Mueller 15:00

Alex, one of the things we didn't see in these press conferences was uh the company representatives uh being there alongside elected officials, emergency responders.

Alex Datig 15:13

Exactly.

Tom Mueller 15:14

And what what was we saw some written statements? The first one came out on day five of the incident. Uh what was your assessment on the company engagement in this whole thing?

Alex Datig 15:27

Well, they sure waited a long time to make a statement saying that they're doing everything to work with the officials, and then today they issued a statement of apology. Uh, but yes, I think you're absolutely right. Uh I think the the company officials should have been part of the news conference. They weren't. They had the I think they realized that they made a mistake, and that's why I think there's a great amount of liability there. And I think we're gonna find out that maybe some of the steps the officials had to take might have been unnecessary, but they did it because they weren't presented with all the information. Or maybe it could have been even worse than what we thought. And because we're not dealing just with one tank, we're dealing with three, and we're dealing with companies that are right down the street that have very highly you know, chlorine and uh surf surfactants and uh oil and uh uh gasoline and and and things like that. So so I think that the the the level of community endangerment that we saw there was just so beyond what we realize at this point, is my feeling, that uh this company knew that they are in big trouble. And that's why they they knew that anything they say can and will be used against them, because I think they're gonna be on the hook here.

Tom Mueller 16:43

Well, I wonder if it's a case where the the company was just unprepared to deal with at the communications around an incident like this. Um, because I know this GKN was uh predecessor company was acquired uh not too long ago, a few years ago, by a UK-based firm. And you could tell from the statements coming out that the statements were coming from London or somewhere in the UK, and the firm they'd hired to represent them was a UK-based uh firm with uh some offices here in the U.S. That's a kind of a PR crisis firm called Brunswick. And um, so I wonder sometimes it's as simple as that is like so many you know smaller manufacturing facilities, they just really hadn't thought about the implications of a major incident on their site, had not developed a crisis communications plan for that facility, for those main risk potential incidents they had.

Alex Datig 17:50

Without a doubt, without a doubt. That's gonna be that's gonna be, I think a judge

Company Silence And Crisis PR

Alex Datig 17:55

is gonna order them to have one of those. And I think they're probably gonna be placed under some uh kind of probationary period where they they have to report uh you know whatever whatever uh measures they're gonna take. But because uh you're absolutely right, uh, the crisis communications aspect from the company's standpoint uh is uh leaves a lot to be desired for sure. Yeah.

Tom Mueller 18:19

I was impressed with the way uh you know they were sort of pulling in third-party ideas, suggestions for how to deal with it. There was one humorous moment uh as I was watching this where it was apparent that they were getting a lot of suggestions from residents about things they might do to you know help resolve this situation. And and the uh Orange County Fire Authority tweeted at one point Um, you know, we have good people working on this. Please stop sending your suggestions in the emails getting cluttered up here. So please stand down on those suggestions. Um and uh I worked the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf Coast some years ago, and then we had to set up a whole division to manage the suggestions that were coming in from all over the world for people about how to stop a runaway oil well under 5,000 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico. So I could relate to what they may have been seeing in the command post there. But uh to me, that was just kind of funny. But Alex, I was curious, you know, this happened on a holiday weekend, right? And and it just seems like that's when the big things are gonna happen. I'm curious as you were sort of watching things evolve from Thursday evening, you know, through Tuesday. Uh, did you could you tell it was a holiday weekend when this thing started with the number of you know communications resources or unified command staffing? Just from your vantage point, could you tell? As I watched, it looked like it was a little thin on Friday and Saturday, uh, but then you know on Saturday things really picked up, and then you could tell there was a lot of resources being pulled to bear here with translation work getting done, multiple videos getting posted, all of that. What was what did you see as you kind of watched over the course of the weekend?

Alex Datig 20:27

I would agree with that assessment completely, Tom, because um, yeah, uh I do think the resources uh there were more resources over the weekend. I think that um they were very, very worried about the tank exploding, as I was saying, you know, and I and I think the more that I talk to you now, the more the more I the more I think that that minimizing the explosion was the end game. They they weren't really saying what's what their strategy was. Uh but but yes, um I uh I think that you're right, you know, there were more resources, but then also on um on Sunday night, I also noticed that that that people were also starting to leave. And after after Chief Crow uh uh Chief McGovern uh announced that the black the the threat of the blast um had been eliminated, that's when the big sigh of relief came. So um, but you know, I I didn't make it to the emergency, emergency shelters, but I was watching everything on my news monitor. I have a news monitor where I can see all the stations uh for front page index. Um that's something that I specialize in is

Holiday Weekend Staffing And Public Calm

Alex Datig 21:40

monitoring uh crisis uh on all stations. So um the media was really reporting, um, doing some excellent reporting coming from the shelters and just the frustration that people experienced when they were getting ready for a holiday weekend and they had to deal with this. I think the official side. That and I think they wanted to make sure that they created an appearance of not panic. That's something they did a really, really, really good job at. They did not panic anyone. No one was um acting out or or you know, demand making demands or any unreasonable demands. That the keeping the community at a level of calm was done in a way that was unlike anything I had ever seen. And I thought it was just so well-timed and so well tempered.

Tom Mueller 22:35

Yeah, excell, excellent point there. And I think you're right. The the tone of the communications, I thought it was just extremely well managed. First of all, you had a very experienced unified command team out there, right? The people that they put out front to communicate with the community on a you know on a daily basis just resonated with credibility. Yes. And you could tell as they were speaking, they knew what was happening. But you also got that really personal, heartfelt emotion coming across from the incident commanders and the unified command about hey, we want you to be safe. That's our bottom line, is we're doing everything we can to keep you safe. We need you to stay out of these evacuation zones. And here's why. Here's what we're working on, here's the threat. And they just, I thought, did a terrific job of capturing the emotion and feeling the emotion that was happening through that incident.

Alex Datig 23:41

They connected very well with that community. I'm in I'm in no position to to to commend anyone, but if I were to have to speak to someone being commended, I would say uh, yes, I mean the fire department, the police department. Um, they did everything they could. They were so patient. They were especially patient with me because I kept entering the hot zone. And there was one night where the red hat came and tried to throw me out and did.

Tom Mueller 24:10

Who's the red hat?

Alex Datig 24:12

Well, the fire chief, you know, the the the uh the frontline red hat with oh geez, he was a hothead too. He was a perfect red hat because he was a hothead. Uh boy, did he come up and he had steam coming out of his ears when he saw me. But uh, and you know, I had a I was uh he was like, You're not in your you're not in your gear, you're not in your protective gear, ma'am. And I had already been there twice before. So I I I took out all my protective gear, put on my fire jacket, my helmet, and no, you can't stay, it's not safe enough for us to be here. We're gonna leave. So they threw me out. That's okay. They they were they were very, very patient with me. And I later went to the fire chief, I went to McGovern and I said, please thank you so much for being so patient with me and

Reporting In The Hot Zone

Alex Datig 24:55

allowing me to do my work as a journalist. And by the way, I gave Garden Grove PD, I gave them both of my credentials for LAPD and the sheriff, and I gave them my driver license. I said, This is who I am, this is what I do. If you see me, this is what I do. If you need to come pull me out, pull me out. So I I always work with law enforcement as a journalist when I go into an area like that because I I don't want them to think that I'm a TikToker or or a YouTuber or or uh or a uh an influencer. Uh that's not what I do when I go into places like that. I go in to find the facts and report the facts as I find them.

Tom Mueller 25:37

Alex, just a quick aside here. Did you happen to uh watch any of the the uh Garden Grove Town Hall meeting that they had Tuesday evening?

Alex Datig 25:46

I did not. I saw about a minute of it. Uh unfortunately, I did not. I really wanted to be there. I couldn't be there for that, but I I would uh I would really like to know uh how that went. Did you see that? Did you have a chance to do that? You did? What was it like? What were the chief complaints? I'm curious.

Tom Mueller 26:04

Uh you know, it was uh, well, first of all, you had uh some of the more elder community uh residents coming up and offering their comments and thanks to the um to the fire department, the police department, the city staff for everything they did to keep people safe, to keep things organized. So you had a really nice thank you moment and appreciative moment. Um but then you uh there was a number of groups uh that were just using this as a stage and an open mic to kind of do their own protest. Uh, there was a Free Palestine group that uh you know came up and was screaming at the city council that uh they need to stop supporting the military-industrial complex

Town Hall Politics And Final Takeaways

Tom Mueller 26:55

like GKN that is building tools that are killing Palestinians today. So you had that whole theme and a couple of speakers with the same script coming up with that. And then you had uh the Democratic Socialists had a group there who you know came up and sort of read the same statements, and they had they actually had really nice colored placards that they were holding up, uh, which I thought was amazing for a meeting that had only been sort of publicly announced a few hours before. Um, but it was very well organized. And again, it was all about um stopping the military-industrial complex and uh getting companies like GKN out of this community. Um, so it was a larger political agenda that was played out and appeared to be pretty well funded, actually. So uh I'm not sure I would expect that. That's unfortunate.

Alex Datig 27:56

That's very unfortunate. I I hate hearing that. That because it really was just um it was probably one of the greatest examples of a successful um emergency uh operation that I've seen. Uh and um I I don't know of one that has been maybe maybe the sandy fire was also pretty good, the way they prevented houses from burning. In the sandy fire, one home burned uh in that recent fire we had. I I couldn't believe that the and there were a lot of homes at risk. So that was pretty amazing too. But um, but this this particular incident was very, very serious. And um, for these officials to have handled it the way they did, in the manner in which they did, uh really has to go, and my in my opinion, as a criminal justice major who studies emergency management, this is a a textbook case for uh officials being responsible and protecting their community and in a in a situation that is just unbelievably dangerous.

Tom Mueller 29:01

Okay. Alex, I think we'll leave it there now. Thank you so much for taking some time this afternoon to uh come and join us and give your thoughts and perspective on this Garden Grove Chemical Incident. Thank you again.

Alex Datig 29:16

It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

Tom Mueller 29:18

And that's going to do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. Thanks for joining us again. If you'd like to email the show, drop me a line at Tom at leading in a crisis dot com. We'll see you again for another episode soon. Take care of you.