During the massive evacuation ordered last month in Garden Grove, Orange County, after a chemical emergency at GKN Aerospace, officials told tens of thousands of residents to leave immediately. But for many vulnerable Californians—including seniors, people with disabilities, and those with complex medical needs—leaving home is not a simple task.
In some cases, it is impossible without assistance.
The emergency involved methyl methacrylate, a flammable chemical used in plastics and resins. Exposure can cause respiratory problems, nosebleeds, nausea, skin reactions, and hospitalization.
State officials declared an emergency, and approximately 50,000 people were urged to evacuate. Shelters, care centers, and hotlines were set up, but critics argue these measures fall short for the most vulnerable residents.
Kelley Barrett, a retired nonprofit administrator and advocate for people with disabilities, wrote a guest commentary published by CalMatters highlighting the gaps in the evacuation plan. Barrett pointed out that a hotline is not an evacuation plan, a shelter list is not a medical placement plan, and a phone call to a care center does not answer the deeper questions about who will care for whom, at what level, and for how long.
Standard shelters may work for people who can walk, drive, carry a bag, sleep on a cot, use a public restroom, manage their own medication, and tolerate crowds. But that is not the reality for bedbound seniors who rely on caregivers for turning, feeding, and medication; for disabled residents whose power wheelchairs cannot fit in regular cars; for hospice patients on oxygen; or for medically fragile individuals who cannot safely sit for hours in a crowded gymnasium.
Barrett emphasized that for a person receiving in-home supportive services, a caregiver is often the reason that person can eat, use the bathroom, take medication, and remain outside an institution. For a hospice patient, evacuation is not just a ride—it is a medical transition.
For someone who depends on oxygen, a hospital bed, wound care, or dialysis, a standard shelter floor is not safe.
The Garden Grove emergency should force California to confront a larger failure, Barrett argued: the state lacks a visible, enforceable system to ensure that medically fragile residents are identified, contacted, and transported safely during mass evacuations. She called on every county to maintain a real “access and functional needs” evacuation plan, which should include confidential coordination with In-Home Supportive Services, Adult Protective Services, hospice agencies, home health agencies, senior housing sites, regional centers, and medical baseline programs.
Such a plan should include accessible transportation, medical transport, caregiver access, oxygen support, medication support, wheelchair charging, disability-accessible bathrooms, language access, and medically appropriate sheltering. After every major evacuation, counties should be required to publicly report how many in-home care recipients, hospice patients, home health patients, oxygen-dependent residents, wheelchair users, and people without vehicles were in the evacuation zone; how many were contacted directly; where they were taken; and how many were left to figure it out themselves.
Barrett stressed that these are life-and-death questions. She noted that the criticism is not directed at firefighters, police officers, or emergency workers, who often risk their lives while larger systems fail around them.
The core issue is whether California’s emergency planning includes people who cannot run, drive, or sleep safely in a standard shelter.
California talks about aging in place, disability rights, and equity, but those promises mean little if disaster planning assumes everyone can self-evacuate. Disabled, elderly, homebound, and medically fragile people are not afterthoughts; they are part of the public.
The question now is not only what was inside that chemical tank, but who made sure the people who could not run were not left behind.