JOANNE LUI with three of her cats evacuated from the West Garden Grove area at the Garden Grove Sports and Recreation Center, which was the evacuation center. Will the cats be compensated? (Tribune photo).
Well, he didn’t say much, but at least his car wasn’t keyed in the parking lot … as far as we know.
Talking about Steve Carlin, senior vice president of GKN, who was sent to a special Garden Grove City Council meeting last week to – allegedly – answer some questions about why a hazardous materials crisis at his company resulted in the evacuation of about 50,000 people in Garden Grove, Stanton, Anaheim and Westminster and scared the daylights out of thousands more.
He did promise to arrange for a bigger town hall later when more facts were available and – presumably – when he was not available or anywhere near by whenever that was held.
The number one issue now seems to be who could be compensated for loss of wages, loss of business, direct costs (rent a hotel room, food, etc.) to those who had to evacuate, etc.
Should it apply only to those inside the evacuation zone? Or how about those indirectly “evacuated” by taking in relatives, etc. who had nowhere else to go?
A conventional view might limit the losses to people living inside the dotted line of the zone, but the actual loss seems to be somewhat more extended.
But let’s not lose sight of the bigger liability: the necessity that GKN take extraordinary measures to make certain that there will be no repeat performances. Otherwise, GKN will have to change its letters to GOT – Get Out of Town.
