SCAQMD Received 89 Calls Sunday (Mar. 16) Re "Mystery Stink" Intensely Smelled From Downtown Long Beach East To Roughly Cherry Ave.; Source Remains A Mystery
(Mar. 18, 2014, 1:10 p.m.) -- Following-up on a story reported Sunday (Mar. 16) by LBREPORT.com regarding an intense odor experienced by residents across a fairly wide portion of Long Beach from mainly downtown to Cherry Ave. extending roughly from the shore to about PCH, the South Coast Air Quality Management District tells LBREPORT.com today (Mar. 18, its first open business day of the work week) that it it received 89 odor complaints primarily from downtown Long Beach, mostly on Sunday with a few on Monday.
"Most residents complained of very strong petroleum-type odors," emails Sam Atwood, SCAQMD Media Relations Manager.
"We sent several inspectors on Sunday in response to the complaints.
So...what were Long Beach residents breathing? "Inspectors did detect the odor and investigated several potential sources but ultimately were not able to track it to a source. We are still evaluating information relating to this odor event," SCAQMD says at this point.
LBREPORT.com previously reported that as of 10 p.m. Sunday (Mar. 16), Justin Rudd's LongBeachCalif Facebook page accumulated over 80 comments about what took place (excerpts below.)
An LBREPORT.com reader in the Orange/4th St. area told us shortly before 9:00 p.m., "It has smelled for three hours now. I left home to get away from it, drove back and it still smells, left again. In Seal Beach now, doesn't smell here. Considering a hotel room, it is THAT bad."
Social network respondents variously described the smell as similar to a hair permanent solution, or roof tar, or asphalt, or petroleum-like...and many of them described the odor as intense.
Below are some comments from the Justin Rudd's LongBeachCalif Facebook page:
Anyone know what the tar-like smell is?...Cherry/3rd St area...
Smells like burnt hair over here in Naples.
Super strong on 4th and redondo
I smell it at 7th and pacific too. It's really bad over here. It's so hot we need to open the window but the air is too bad to breathe in. So it's 90 degrees in our apartment and there is nothing we can do about it
I thought maybe someone was crazy enough to tar their roof in this heat. Smells awful here too...Alamitos & 5th.
Smells like sulfur
I smelled that awful odor when I got to 3rd and Alamitos
I don't know, but over here, it smell's like burning Asphalt or Rubber, oil maybe?
We thought it smelled like perm solution, too!
Smells bad by Cesar Chavez park
The smell won't leave our apartment now. Giving us all migraines. Cherry and 1st (Bixby Park) been smelling for about 4.5 hours now.
2nd and kennebeck, smelling it too...
Daisy and 10th. Gave us all a migraine
Ocean & Pine. I smell it, too...
Yep down here on 7th and atl it stinks bad
Yes me too I'm on 8th and magnolia.
Nasty smellin at long Beach blvd and first
Real bad at 3rd and Alamitos! Headache and allergies
I smelled it earlier around PCH/Redondo.
It had permeated inside the whole apt had to shut the Windows which made my headache and nausea only worse trapping the heat in...I'm still not feeling good....
Smells like sulfur to me too at 10th & Pine. Or burnt rubber...
It is over by 4th and Orange too.
I have smelled it often, 4th and chestnut, but never knew what it was.
OMG it's making me sick!
Ocean and Belmont...same thing all day.
7th and Walnut. Really strong at 5:00 pm...
It's horrible! I'm on 3rd and Cherry
It smells like tar downtown. i thought it was a street issue.
Really bad on 7th and Magnolia
15th and Elm the smell was nauseating...smelled like sulfur pretty bad
5th and junipero it's bad!
I smelled it on 7th/Ximeno as well
I'm at the Villages and it is really bad out here!
I smell it too...Alamitos and 1st
I live on Gladys and 7Th and can smell it here. what is it?
It's horrible.. I thought my condo was in fire..woke me up from my nap!!
I was wondering what was that burning smell
Long Beach has experienced previous "mystery stinks," most of them from sources not conclusively identified.
On Sept. 23, 2013, an area odor (a burning plastic smell) was strongly experienced in the Long Beach area from Bixby Knolls to East Long Beach. It was firmly attributed to a two-alarm fire at a plastics plant in Compton (2225 E. Del Amo Blvd., west of Alameda St.)
June 29, 2013 an area odor -- which smelled more like natural gas -- was felt so intensely that the Long Beach Gas Dept. put a recorded message on its telephone line indicating it had received a "high volume" of calls on the matter. AQMD later said it didn't know what it was, what it contained or from where it came. Two days later on July 2, 2013, a neighborhood in the southern central area of Long Beach reported a second stink (Tues. July 2) in the vicinity of Redondo Ave. at about 3rd and 4th Sts.
On Oct. 25, 2012, residents of the Belmont Shore/ELB area variously reported a smell similar to rotten eggs or natural gas. AQMD said it received roughly 105 calls clustered mainly in Belmont Shore and areas slightly inland [into ELB].
On September 18, 2011, a number of LBREPORT.com readers in SE and Eastern Long Beach reported smelling a strong odor, described as a natural gas type smell, from the 1 p.m. hour into at least the 3 p.m. hour.
