Businesses Evacuated After Ammonia Leak

An ammonia leak at a La Habra grocery warehouse Sunday night sent a cloud of noxious fumes drifting about half a mile over the area, prompting the evacuation of a supermarket and some nearby businesses.

The leak was reported at 7:33 p.m. in an Alpha Beta warehouse at 1111 S. Harbor Blvd. A Lucky supermarket, two restaurants and a gas station, all situated across the street and downwind of the leak and all in Fullerton, were evacuated.

In addition, the intersection of Harbor Boulevard and Imperial Highway was closed. Authorities for a time were considering further evacuations as easterly winds carried the ammonia cloud toward Brea.

The emergency ended when the cloud dissipated and the ammonia finally stopped leaking about 9:25 p.m., La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said. The leak was traced to a refrigeration unit in the warehouse, but its cause was not immediately known.

Although no injuries were reported, some of the estimated 100 shoppers evacuated from the Lucky supermarket reported suffering headaches and burning throats. The store, normally open 24 hours, was ordered evacuated about 8:20 p.m. by Fullerton police.

“You could smell it inside the store,” Lucky stock clerk Pat Taylor said. “It was getting worse and worse.”

Also evacuated were Black Angus and El Torito restaurants and a Chevron station. About 8:30 p.m., a frantic attendant at the station said: “I see an emergency. They said we have to close down.”

Even businesses not ordered evacuated were affected by the leak. “It was horrible,” Alicia Campos, assistant manager of the El Pollo Loco restaurant at the south end of the Lucky shopping center, said of the odor.

Fire officials, she said, told her the restaurant could remain open “as long as we stay indoors.” But the point was moot, she said; firefighters had closed off the streets, and there were no customers in the restaurant.

1st Reported as Smoke

The leak, first reported as smoke, was reported coming from the Alpha Beta building. La Habra Patrolman Michael Mitchell, one of the first on the scene, said he knew right away that it was not smoke.

“You could smell” the ammonia “as soon as you came around the corner,” Mitchell said. “The longer you breathe it, the worse it is. Once you smell it, you remember it for life.”

Ammonia is a colorless, pungent gas that is toxic if inhaled and that, in small quantities, causes eye and respiratory irritation. It can be fatal in large concentrations.

La Habra authorities quickly called for assistance from fire and police departments in Fullerton and Brea, since the wind was carrying the ammonia cloud toward those cities. They also summoned the Anaheim Fire Department, which dispatched its Hazardous Materials Unit to the scene, an action covered under a contract with the city of La Habra that was renegotiated just last Wednesday.

According to La Habra firefighter Andrew Munoz, fire officials concentrated on dissipating the ammonia fumes with water while the hazardous materials investigators worked to stop the leak. To stop it, they first shut down all power to the building, then sent an Alpha Beta repairman inside to ascertain its source.

The leak finally stopped of its own accord, however, when the source of ammonia simply ran out, Rees said.

As the fire crews worked, police manned the roadblocks that had been set up about half a mile in each direction from the Harbor-Imperial intersection.

David Burke ontributed to this story.