Project Katrina

I’ve always felt months and years later as we look back on this we’re going to find it was a cluster fuck beyond comprehension. This makes me think I am correct at levels I’ve not even considered:

In hindsight, if BP had removed the 5,000-foot-long tangle of riser pipe from its damaged Gulf well in the early days of the spill, a new blowout preventer or cap could have been installed, shutting down the well perhaps within weeks instead of months, according to both the federal incident commander and petroleum engineers.

“I think that is one thing we will look at,” retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said during a recent interview with the Press-Register editorial board. “Obviously what finally worked was cutting the riser pipe. [....] If we had elected to cut the riser pipe we might have been able to do it much quicker.”

In his daily press briefer earlier today, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, commander of the federal response to BP’s spill gusher, announced that rough seas caused by Hurricane Alex are forcing a delay in a plan to double the rate of oil captured from the well head. The plan depends on the addition of a third vessel by the end of the month, the Helix Producer, to the two already capturing oil. The Helix Producer is on location, but with waves at between seven and twelve feet, the conditions in the Gulf are too rough to connect it to the piping carrying the captured oil. Allen said that until the waves fall to between three to five feet, it won’t be possible to connect the new vessel to the piping.