BP Gulf Oil Disaster - Historical Timeline Days 1-50

Friday, June 4, 2010

Day 50, Tuesday 6/8/2010 -

Two More Gulf Spills? - National - The Atlantic

BP: 'Virtually all' oil to be captured soon...

PLUMES OF OIL BELOW SURFACE RAISE NEW CONCERNS...

DAY 50: Rate of leak still not clear...

BP LIVE FEED says- Subsea operational update:

•For the first 12 hours on June 8th (midnight to noon), approximately 7,850 barrels of oil were collected and 15.2 million cubic feet of natural gas was flared.

•On June 7th, a total of approximately 14,800 barrels of oil were collected and 30.6 million cubic feet of natural gas was flared.

•Operations during this period were stable.

•The next update will be provided at 9:00am CDT on June 9, 2010.

Second leaking rig near Deepwater Horizon...

PAPER: Spill reveals Obama's lack of executive experience...

Headline sources: Drudge Report

Day 49, Monday 6/7/2010 -
Poll: BP Oil Spill Rated Worse Than Hurricane Katrina; Most Americans Favor Pursuit of Criminal Charges According to ABC News and Washington Post Poll - ABC News
By more than a 2-to-1 margin, Americans support the pursuit of criminal charges in the nation's worst oil spill , with increasing numbers calling it a major environmental disaster. Eight in 10 criticize the way BP's handled it – and more people give the federal government's response a negative rating than did the response to Hurricane Katrina.

BP’s CEO Hasn’t Spoken Directly With Obama About Leak
BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward hasn’t spoken directly to President Barack Obama since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20.

“There is no need for that,” Hayward told the British Broadcasting Corp. in a live interview in London today. “I have spoken to his key lieutenants.”

Live feed shows crude still pouring out...

Headline sources: Drudge Report

Subsea operational update:
•On June 6, a total of 11,100 barrels of oil was collected and 22 million cubic feet of natural gas was flared.
•Optimization continues and improvement in oil collection is expected over the next few days.

Day 48, Sunday 6/6/2010 - Crude gushes from cap; only a fraction captured... - Thad Allen, guessed early Friday that the cap was collecting 42,000 gallons a day - less than one-tenth of the amount leaking from the well. Later in the day, BP said in a tweet that since it was installed Thursday night, it had collected about 76,000 gallons... Six weeks after the April 20 oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers, the well has leaked somewhere between 22 million and 47 million gallons of oil, according to government estimates.

Documented Disaster: Gulf Oil Disaster - Day 48

Day 47, Sat 6/5/2010 - BP said today that its latest try to control the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico may be working.
Created Onero Hosts The Fiddler video and posted it on YouTube.
Day 46, Fri 6/4/2010 - Documented Disaster blog is created.
Obama Heads to Gulf as ‘Furor’ Shifts to White House
Day 45, Thu 6/3/2010 - Brian O'Neill, Attorney for Fisherman in 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill appears on CSPAN and clearly explains the realities of the situation - THIS IS A MUST SEE VIDEO
Day 44, Wed 6/2/2010 - Some experts say that under a worst case scenario, the oil leak could last until Christmas. Things would have to go really wrong for that to happen, but so far, not much has gone right.

Sarah Palin used Twitter to defend her "drill, baby, drill" rallying cry, implying that environmentalists are to blame for the BP oil spill.

All of this is making the BP stock plunge on the stock markets.

BP is apparently trying to ban workers from sharing photos of animals killed by the oil, and according to polls, 1/5 of Americans still view BP favorably.
Summary Source-TreeHugger

Sir Paul McCartney performed for President Obama in the East Room of the White House.

Day 43, Tue 6/1/2010 - Contradicting the findings of many scientists, BP denies the existence of underwater oil plumes. Scientists claim they have found more than one oil plume, one of them "22 miles long, six miles wide and more than a thousand feet deep".

BP CEO, Tony Hayward, was quoted saying: "I'd Like My Life Back". Poor him!
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 42, Mon 5/31/2010 -
Day 41, Sun 5/30/2010 -
Day 40, Sat 5/29/2010 -
Day 39, Fri 5/28/2010 -
Day 38, Thu 5/27/2010 - The "top kill" is finally attempted, and at first it looked like it was working (a U.S. Coast Guard admiral said as much). But after a few days of efforts, the "top kill" is abandoned. BP will have to try something else...

Meanwhile, more people are making ironic BP T-Shirt and some of the oil cleanup workers are getting sick.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 37, Wed 5/26/2010 -
Day 36, Tue 5/25/2010 -
Day 35, Mon 5/24/2010 - BP keeps delaying a "top kill" operation that could potentially plug the oil well and stop the flow of oil.

Some start to wonder what a rough hurricane season could mean to the oil clean up operations.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Interior Secretary Salazar slams BP for missing deadlines on sealing oil well
Day 34, Sun 5/23/2010 -
Day 33, Sat 5/22/2010 -
Day 32, Fri 5/21/2010 -
Day 31, Thu 5/20/2010 -
Day 30, Wed 5/19/2010 -
Day 29, Tue 5/18/2010 - Actor Kevin Costner shows a machine that he claims can separate 97% of the oil from water. He personally invested money into its development and his brother, a scientist, is in charge of that project.

NASA shows images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, revealing for the first time a massive "arm" hundreds of miles long.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 28, Mon 5/17/2010 -
Day 27, Sun 5/16/2010 - BP succeeds in inserting a tube into the leaking riser pile of the well and capturing some oil and gas, but not that much compared to what is still leaking out.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 26, Sat 5/15/2010 -
Day 25, Fri 5/14/2010 - BP tries to intubate one of the oil leaks with a smaller pipe to siphon off the oil. Meanwhile, many people are starting to wonder if the official estimate of 5,000 barrels/day is accurate, and if BP isn't hiding that much more oil is leaking in the Gulf of Mexico.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 24, Thu 5/13/2010 -
Day 23, Wed 5/12/2010 - BP finally decided to release pictures of the underwater oil leak, allowing independent scientists and engineers to have a look.

Executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton appear at congressional hearings and blame each other for the fiasco.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 22, Tue 5/11/2010 -
Day 21, Mon 5/10/2010 - NASA published photos of the oil taken from the International Space Station by an astronaut. They show the vast scale of the disaster.

Brian Merchant, who writes for TreeHugger and Planet Green, is in Louisiana covering the spill. He has photos of oil hitting the shore and of oil barriers that failed and ended up on the beach. He also reports about some of the health risks that fishermen working to contain the oil face.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 20, Sun 5/9/2010 -
Day 19, Sat 5/8/2010 - The plan to stop one of the oil leaks with a containment dome was a failure. The dome was removed and now BP has to figure out what to do.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 18, Fri 5/7/2010 -
Day 17, Thu 5/6/2010 -
Day 16, Wed 5/5/2010 - BP says that it succeeded in plugging one of the three leaks, but we're not out of the woods yet. Tomorrow, if all goes well, they're going to lower a 100-ton metal containment dome on one of the other leaks to siphon the oil.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 15, Tue 5/4/2010 -
Halliburton Could Be at Fault for Oil Spill - Science and Tech - The Atlantic
Is the BP oil spill really that big of a deal? That's the question that we try to answer here; while it isn't the biggest spill ever, there's too many people who try to minimize it, mostly politicians who would like offshore drilling to keep going without any changes.
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 14, Mon 5/3/2010 - BP is trying to install a shutoff valve on one of the three underwater leaks, but this is a complicated operation that might not succeed. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the oil slick appears to be drifting toward the Alabama and Florida coasts, including the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana's southern tip.
Summary Source-TreeHugger

Despite plan, not a single fire boom on hand on Gulf Coast at time of oil spill
From the May 03, 2010 21:41:32 GMT edition of the Drudge Report.

Day 13, Sun 5/2/2010 -
Day 12, Sat 5/1/2010 - SkyTruth, a small non-profit, analyzed radar and satellite imagery and estimated that the oil was leaking much faster than the original official estimates. The initial figure was 1,000 barrels/day, which they successfully challenged with a new estimate of 5,000 barrels/day. But even that proved too optimistic, and on Saturday they revised their estimate to 25,000 barrels/day!
Summary Source-TreeHugger
Day 11, Fri 4/30/2010 - Satellite photos from NASA are released showing a finger of the slick reaching the delta.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 10, Thu 4/29/2010 - Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declares a state of emergency and the federal government sends in skimmers and booms to prevent environmental damage.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Rush Limbaugh points out that SWAT teams were sent to the gulf and speculates that the rig may have been blown up by environmentalists.
Day 9, Wed 4/28/2010 - The slick nears to 20 miles east of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 8, Tue 4/27/2010 - Officials consider setting fire to the slick, which has grown to 100 miles across.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 7, Mon 4/26/2010 - The oil slick stretches 80 miles across the Gulf and is 36 miles southeast of Louisiana.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 6, Sun 4/25/2010 - The oil slick covering 600 square miles and spreading north, is about 70 miles south of the Mississippi and Alabama coastline.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 5, Sat 4/24/2010 - With remotely operated vehicles, officials discover the oil is escaping from two leaks in a drilling pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. Leaks appear to be releasing 1,000 barrels a day.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 4, Fri 4/23/2010 - Coast Guard state no oil appears to be escaping from the well head on the ocean floor. The U.S. Coast Guard suspends its search for the 11 missing crewmembers at approximately 5 p.m. ending a three day search that included 28 air and ocean craft and covered ~5,375 square miles.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 3, Thu 4/22/2010 - The fire rages. Mid-morning Thursday a second explosion occurs causing the rig to sink. 700,000 gallons of diesel are enclosed tanks inside the pontoons at the time of the initial explosion. Unclear if diesel remains contained.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 2, Wed 4/21/2010 - Officials state environmental damage will be minimal. BP mobilizes an armada of ships and aircraft to contain the oil slick.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News
Day 1, Tue 4/20/2010 - A Transocean rig called the Deepwater Horizon explodes and catches fire, approximately 42 miles Southeast of Venice, Louisiana, while finishing a well for British Petroleum. U.S. Coast Guard District Eight command center receives report at approximately 10 p.m. Of the 126 people on board at the time of the explosion, 115 crewmembers were accounted for. Of these 115, 17 were medevaced from the scene. Search begins for missing 11.
Summary Source- Deep Sea News

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Disaster Defined

An occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe.

A disaster is a perceived tragedy, being either a natural calamity or man-made catastrophe. It is a hazard which has come to fruition. A hazard, in turn, is a situation which poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or that may deleteriously affect society or an environment.

In the modern world, the traditional view of natural disasters as punishments for human wickedness has given way to the scientific study of the causes of seemingly unpredictable acts of nature. In recent years, however, scholars have placed more emphasis on the roles played by greed and indifference to potential human suffering in many seemingly "natural" disasters.

The excerpts above are from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language Fourth Edition, Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of American History. Retrieved June 04, 2010, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/disaster


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