Drug Lab Raid Near School : Crime: Threat from fumes, explosives forces hundreds of children to be evacuated.

Hundreds of children were evacuated and three people were overcome by noxious fumes after police served a search warrant Friday at a methamphetamine lab full of dangerous chemicals and some explosives.

Drug investigators could not enter the lab for more than six hours, waiting until firefighters in full protective garb and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad robot diffused the highly dangerous chemical, and the bomb squad cleared the business of two grenade detonators.

Garden Grove police served the warrant on a business in a commercial complex in the 8400 block of Cerritos Avenue at 9:42 a.m. and arrested three suspects on drug charges, one of them as he tried to leave the building. Police did not release their names Friday.

Sgt. Scott Watson, the department’s head of narcotics, said police acted on information that the suspects were running a drug lab that contained explosives, across the street from Robert M. Pyles Elementary School. Officers also had a tip that the lab might have “booby traps” rigged to ignite if the lab was disturbed, he said.

As a precaution, they served the warrants with the bomb squad and firefighters present.

While making the arrests, officials noticed crates marked “munitions” and several grenade igniters, or detonators. A wrapped package of a chemical believed to be red powdered phosphorous ignited during the search, flooding the building with smoke and forcing officials to retreat.

Fire officials ordered an evacuation of the 700 schoolchildren across the street and about 100 people from neighboring businesses, said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Dan S. Young.

Two firefighters and a sheriff’s bomb squad investigator were overcome by the fumes, which cause difficulty breathing, watery eyes, coughing and choking. They were taken to Los Alamitos Medical Center, where they were treated and released, Young said.

Some of the phosphorous was removed by hazardous-material personnel in protective suits. But they were pulled back and a robot was later sent in about 3:45 p.m. to finish the job.

The Orange County Bureau of Narcotics Lab Enforcement Team, headed by the state Department of Justice, took over the drug investigation by evening. The team has conducted raids on six methamphetamine labs in Orange County in the past two weeks, said Gary Hudson, the team’s supervisor.

Hudson said it is unclear whether the lab was booby-trapped, and that the volatile red phosphorous might have ignited when it was moved.

At Robert M. Pyles Elementary School, administrators, teachers and staff members hurriedly evacuated students to Lord Baden Powell elementary, a few blocks away.

“They thought it was a walking field trip and they went single file with their teachers,” said Christa Ruesga, a school secretary. “They were fine.”

Three staff members remained behind at Pyles to answer phone calls from anxious parents who were told of the evacuation and given maps to Baden Powell to retrieve their children, Ruesga said.

“We had to stay behind because it was so busy,” Ruesga said. “We were getting one phone call a minute on every line we have here.”

Red phosphorous is extremely dangerous and used in the making of methamphetamine. It easily can turn to white phosphorous, which ignites spontaneously in air at 86 degrees Fahrenheit. White phosphorous can cause serious lung damage.

Phosphorous is usually stored underwater and away from heat. Its legal uses include killing rodents.

Neighbors and owners from nearby businesses gathered at the scene Friday. Some said the suspects’ unit, which appears to be a vacant office in front with a warehouse in back, looks unoccupied by day. But at night, the rear warehouse door would open, revealing a cluttered living area filled with couches, junk, old cars, and even a battered organ, said neighbor Don Crawford, 45.

Steve Sisson, the owner of Crystal Clear Glass & Mirror, operates a 24-hour shop next door to the suspects’ unit and said he suspected drug running when he noticed how that his neighbors were active at 2 a.m. One of the suspects works at a hospital, he said.

The men told Sisson about four or five months ago that they were the “Arizona Pipe Co.,” and told one of Sisson’s employees that they dealt in underground telephone equipment.

“I told them, ‘You realize, if you have any weapons or drugs, you’re right across the street from a school and you’re going to see prison time,”’ Sisson said.

Property manager Richard B. Walsworth said he leased the unit several months ago to an Earl Nordquist, who had told him he was in some kind of telecommunications business and wanted to store a pickup and service equipment.

“But about a month later, I got reports from neighbors that they were starting to get a lot of funny people hanging around late at night,” said Walsworth, who manages the building for a partnership.

Walsworth said he went to the address and found another man, who told Walsworth that Nordquist was letting him stay there while he did body work on a car. But after a warning, Walsworth said he received fewer reports about people staying there late at night.

Sisson said the men had been keeping their door shut for about two weeks.