Fireworks a Burden for Residents

Ana Gomez had had a rough night of sleep, what with the loud banging outside and a bed that consisted of a neighbor’s floor, besides sharing the house with the seven children and two adults who live there.

When she was forced to evacuate her Anaheim home Thursday, she took only a pillow, her blood pressure medicine and Sugar, her yellow cockatiel.

She was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

Gomez, 79, was among the 40 people evacuated this week from their homes on Pauline Street after 1,000 pounds of fireworks, explosives and blasting agents were discovered, illegally kept in three trailers in a storage yard behind their homes.

A storage-yard employee discovered the fireworks when he opened the trailers to take inventory of the contents when owner Richard Helgason failed to pay rent.

Helgason, 49, of Orange, holds federal and state licenses to manufacture pyrotechnics for the movie industry. He also has worked for Disneyland.

Since Wednesday, more than 200 people, including members of the Orange County sheriff’s bomb squad, the Anaheim Fire Department’s hazardousmaterials team and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, have sifted through the material and detonated the substances considered unstable at Grover Stadium in La Palma Park.

The more stable material will be exploded in San Bernardino County, said John Nicoletti, spokesman for the city.

On Friday, authorities discovered a second location where Helgason stored items, Nicoletti said. They would investigate it after they finish with the trailers on Pauline Street, he said. The second location poses less danger because it is more isolated, said James Crowell, assistant special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Los Angeles district. Authorities would not disclose the location of that site, other than to say it was “much more commercial in nature.”

Because the Pauline Street storage area is next to homes, authorities decided to evacuate some homes, Crowell said. “Had these things gone up, had they exploded, there would have been massive devastation.”

The Pauline Street fireworks were not separated by type and were not stored in a controlled environment, as they should have been, Crowell said. The materials were in aluminum containers, making them more susceptible to weather conditions that could have set them off, he said.

“These things were sitting in the middle of Anaheim with the sun beating down on them,” he said.

Authorities were trying to decide whether Helgason would face charges.

Helgason said he had made a mistake and should have stored the material differently. “I’ve certainly learned my lesson. But I feel like I’ve been kind of over-chastised by this. It was in a secure area and free from the possibility of everyone getting to it.”

He said he called the storage company when he moved several months ago and left a message to say he would come to settle his debt.

The Pauline Street residents who haven’t been evacuated say they are trying to resume their routines despite police tape cutting off their block, fire engines in the street and explosions about a mile away.

“I couldn’t even go to school,” said Julio Barragan, 15. Streets were blocked off, he said, so he didn’t know where to catch the bus and missed his last day of summer school, he said.

The rest of his family was told to stay inside. “We were going to get our trash, and they told us to come back in,” Barragan said.

Down the street, Joel Ortuno and his brother Angel were sitting inside their house. Ordinarily on a summer day they would be out trying new skateboard tricks or riding their bikes. But now, Joel said glumly, “we’re stuck in here.”

Most residents were able to go to work, but for Diane Patel and her husband, there was no work.

They own the Crown Motel, near Grover Stadium, and the main routes to the motel were blocked. Last weekend, all 20 rooms were filled, but Friday the lot was empty and there were no bookings for the weekend.

“My husband’s furious,” Patel said.