You are in the current BP disaster ROV, number 54. Number 53 is here.
Please DO NOT Rec this diary, rather rec the Mothership REC THE MOTHERSHIP instead. She needs your love to stay afloat.
Please be kind to kossacks with bandwidth issues. Please do not post images or videos. Again, many thanks for this.
PLEASE visit Crashing Vor's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor for working on this!
For a description of the mothership/ROV liveblogging process, check out this thread.
This is where you want to be for discussion, worrying, tearing up, and caring for each other. It's also where you're welcome to be angry and scream and curse and cry and rant at the criminal negligence and greed that have brought us all together. Most importantly, though, it's where we can learn from those kossaks among us (I'll not name names for abject fear of leaving one of you out, but you know who you are.) who bring the light of knowledge - sometimes with heat, sometimes without it - and teach us about what's happening beneath our Gulf of Mexico. I would like to ask that you treat each other with dignity. This process, watching crimes against humanity and the earth being carried out on multi-screen displays, is harrowing and painful. I grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and to this day I think of it as "my" beach. And I have to step away: to go for a run, or throw a baseball with my neighbors' kids, or sit on the back deck with my cat and a beer. Please do whatever it is you do to "center" yourselves, and to care of yourselves.
BP put up a video explaining the LMRP procedure and the future plans.
Breaking News:
THIS IS WHAT BP DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU SICK AT HEART. DO NOT VIEW THEM LIGHTLY.
Really, I mean it. Hold somebody's hand. Grab a tissue.
Please DO NOT Rec this diary, Rec the Mothership here.
cosmic debris put together a comprehensive list of links on oil health and safety info:
Here is a tutorial on the sources of pressure on the well
Here is an excellent image of what is supposed to exist under the wellhead. Take the comments from Halliburton with a grain of salt since this is part of their "blame those two" PR campaign.
The video feeds we are watching:
The best multi-view feed
BP Video Feed
CNN Video Streams - Note: multi-view is sometimes unavailable.
PBS This PBS feed is security compliant
Markey's multi-view page
BP videos - Links to all available live feeds from BP
WKRG - Mobile/Pensacola (contains link for an iPhone app at the bottom)
ABC 7 Chicago Live Video - Multiple ROV Camera Views (h/t to temptxan for the great find)
Vote For America's awesome clickable multi-view
A multi-view with feeds from BP, C-SPAN-2, WKRG, and PBS
Courtesy of whitis here are two additional video links:
Primary feed.
Secondary feed.
And thanks to geeks at The Oil Drum, perhaps a complete list of all possible video feed sources, for Windows Media Player:
BP "Official" #1
BP "Official" #2
BP mystery feed #1
BP mystery feed #2
Oceaneering #1
Oceaneering #2
Subsea 7/MSV Skandi Neptune Hercules-14 #1
Subsea 7/MSV Skandi Neptune Hercules-14 #2
Subsea 7/MSV Skandi Neptune Hercules-6 #1
Subsea 7/MSV Skandi Neptune Hercules-6 #1
SS7? Herc6? #1
SS7? Herc6? #2
SS7? Herc6? #3
Veolia/XLX 36 #1
Veolia/XLX 36 #2
Oceaneering mill21 q4000 upper extension
Oceaneering mill21 q4000 upper extension duplicate?
Oceaneering mill42?
Oceaneering?
CPRK-RVS001
CPRK-RVS001 duplicate?
Enterprise ROV #2
Enterprise ROV #2 backup
Boa ROV #1
Boa ROV #1 backup
Again, to keep bandwidth down please do not post images or videos.
Links, courtesy of several Kossacks
- Visualize the spill
- Nola.com
- h/t dov12348's recommended links
- The Oil Drum
- Oil & Gas Journal
- Offshore Magazine
- Petroleum News
- Your Oil and Gas News
- World Oil
- Administration response to spill.
- Donate to SkyTruth here. SkyTruth helps environmental NGOs use remote sensing (pictures taken from space) and digital mapping to improve their scientific credibility, conservation decisionmaking, communications and public outreach.
- Images of the Oilpacalypse, from Tomtech.
- Visit the Oil Spill Crisis Map to see where oil, mousse, tar balls, and eau de crude have been reported on the Gulf coast.
- The BP Deepwater Horizon Unified Command official website. Wherein you can read latest post warning of employment scams associated with the event and much more from the folks handling this.
- Timeline of response here.
- Timeline of the Event from April 20th being maintained by blogroots.
- Department of Energy BP Deepwater Horizon Spill site updates.
- Bit Tooth Energy blog (technical discussions) by the famed Heading Out, well known key poster on The Oil Drum blog site.
- Department of Interior BP Deepwater Horizon Response site provides updates, reports, data, links to pictures, etc.
- Rigzone for specific disaster news and news about the offshore industry, in general.
- BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Quantitative Data - from whitis
- Courtesy of profgoose here is a list of links from The Oil Drum links on newer developments, etc
- Maritime ship tracking -- courtesy of johnsonwax
- U.S. begins criminal investigation into oil spil
- NOAA Spill tracking site
- ERMA: Environmental Response Management Application
- BP has a good diagram of the cutting process that partially succeeded
- Documents show BP chose a less-expensive, less-reliable method for completing well in Gulf oil spill
Previous liveblog ROV diaries:
BP Liveblog ROV 53 -Yasuragi
BP Liveblog ROV 52 -hester
BP Liveblog ROV 51 -Tomtech
BP Liveblog ROV 50 -peraspera
BP Liveblog ROV 49 -middleagedhousewife
BP Liveblog ROV 48 - politik
BP Liveblog ROV 47 -Lusty
BP Liveblog ROV 46 -Pam LaPier
BP Liveblog ROV 45 - khowell
BP Liveblog ROV 44 -Pakalolo
BP Liveblog ROV 43 -Tomtech
BP Liveblog ROV 42 -Garrett
BP Liveblog ROV 41 -Yasuragi
BP Liveblog ROV 40 -hester
BP Liveblog ROV 39 -OpMama
BP Liveblog ROV 38 -Tomtech
BP Liveblog ROV 37 -khowell
BP Liveblog ROV 36 -splashy
BP Liveblog ROV 35 -conchita
BP Liveblog ROV 34- OpMama
BP Liveblog ROV 33 -yawnimawke
BP Liveblog ROV 32 -Pam LaPier
BP Liveblog ROV 31 -splashy
BP Liveblog ROV 30 -nika7k
BP Liveblog ROV 29 -khowell
BP Liveblog ROV 28 - tomtech
BP Liveblog ROV - Diary 27 - Yasuragi
BP Liveblog ROV - Diary 26 - Alkalinesky
BP Liveblog ROV - Diary 25 - Tomtech
Daily Kos POST-Top Kill, Junk Shot, LMRP Diary #24- hester
Daily Kos POST-Top Kill, Junk Shot, LMRP Diary #23- nika7k
Top Kill Liveblog ROV 22- papicek
Top Kill Liveblog ROV 21 - weatherdude
Top Kill Liveblog ROV 20 - joanneleon
Top Kill Liveblog ROV 19 - nika7k
BP TKJSLMRP LiveBlog - Diary 18 - yawnimawke
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 17 - weatherdude
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 16 - politik
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 15 - RhymesWithUrple
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 14 - johnsonwax
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 13 - Middleagedhousewife
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 12 - nika7k
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 11 - Overseas
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 10 - conchita
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 9 - khowell
BP TKJS LiveBlog - Diary 8 - Garrett
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 7 - miep
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 6 - Alkalinesky
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 5 - Liveblog
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 4 - Garrett
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 3 - sc kitty
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 2 - conchita
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 1 - khowell
Top Kill has begun! - Tomtech
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The Mississippi Gulf Coast is a place, I'm sure many of you have realized by now, that inspires me. I grew up there, fell in love there - at least twice, almost got married there, and finally lived there as an adult, a stone's throw from the Ocean Springs Yacht Club. People who like to harass Mississippians for their lack of culture often stand agape when I tell them what I enjoyed on the Gulf Coast. In OS, I was 20 minutes from the symphony, just around the corner from one museum (the Walter Anderson) and about 15 minutes from the George Ohr. (Now the Ohr-O'Keefe.) I played violin, then oboe with a string quartet and a woodwind quintet that provided background music at tony parties in Ishee Houses. (These were lovely open homes, often framed in old-growth oak, with lots of windows and expansive views. I've tried to find a picture but can't.) As the child of public-school educators in Mississippi, the homes were far beyond my ken, and I always felt vaguely out of place - like a servant - until we started playing.
Ocean Springs is particularly lovely place. It's a medium-sized town, about 17,000 people when I lived there, just east of Biloxi on the Gulf. Ancient oaks, pines and magnolias grow there, along with black needlerush and spartina. My home there was a sturdy one - pre-Camille construction - and built like a bunker. I helped my then boyfriend with some remodeling and found a waterline about six and a half feet high; the house survived the storm, even though the roof didn't. In the front yard sat "my boat" - a little Whitehall-style row-sail, fiberglass, light enough for me to carry across the front yard and put in on front beach. I didn't often put the sail up when I first got the boat - I enjoyed the exercise, in addition to being nervous, but after lessons and a lot of patience on a friend's catamaran and more hours on the Swetman than I could count, I was comfortable enough putting up the sail that I did it almost every time I went out. My school schedule was horrible - 24 hours - but I was lucky on Fridays: my Vietnam War class didn't meet, and I could leave Southern Miss by 11. Two hours to Ocean Springs, a snack, towel, and books, and I could be on Horn Island by three, maybe four.
Horn is beautiful. Just a spit of land, long and skinny. I'd put in and pull her up on the shore. I'd sprawl out on a blanket and crack a book - something from class, or not - and ignore it as I watched the wildlife. Pelicans, terns, herons... and big birds that I couldn't name. I saw my first bald eagle out there not long before my 20th birthday. If the sun's heat got to be too much, I'd use sand spikes and hacked off poles to put up a kind of tent. When winds came up, I reveled in the salt spray and the scent of the sea all around.
There is nothing like being the only person on an island. That was the place that I truly fell in love in Ocean Springs. I loved the silence, the solitude and beauty. And I was comfortable there. I was often awkward in other places, but I had to rely on myself to get myself out, and back in, and my decisions on that tiny sliver of sand affected an entire delicate ecosystem. I could see there firsthand how my actions could to good or bad. Many of us - not in this community, necessarily, but many people in general - don't have that luxury.
If anything good can come of this disaster, it will be that more people open their eyes to the delicacy and beauty and interconnected nature of our world. Perhaps people will see themselves both on the island and as part of the larger human ecosystem - straddling the natural and constructed environments, and finally aiding both.
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I thank all of you for giving me comfort since 20 April. In many ways I'm mourning the slow pain endured by someone I've loved very much. I know those of you here share that pain. You're all kind and caring people, and you've enriched my life with your knowledge and your kindness. All I can offer is my gratitude, and you all have it.