You are in the current BP disaster ROV number 387; number 386 is here. The digest of diaries is here
Please DO NOT Rec this diary, rather 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 Pam LaPier'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 and Pam LaPier for working on this!
For a description of the mothership/ROV liveblogging process, check out this thread.
Must see:
BOP Forensic Analysis Part 1
BOP Forensic Analysis Part 2
BOP Forensic Analysis Part 3
I received a set of links to the massive video library collected by Josef Gerbils of The Oil Drum.
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut & Oil Spill:
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut II
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut III
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut IV
Deepwater Horizon BlowOut V
Those include many videos from our crew and others.
Must reads:
Six Steps that Doomed the Rig is an excellent graphic from the New Orleans Times Picayune.
Lax Oversight Seen in Failure of Oil Rig's Last Line of Defense. Watch video and interactive graphic page, too. That has one of the best overviews of how the BOP works, and doesn't work, and the management interference that caused the accident.
We have a new 40 page 12mb report on the Macondo well that is an excellent reference on the well design.
Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill Reference Material - from Whitis is the best source for everything.. The quantitative data diary has also been moved there.
The motherlode of technical data Kairos brought us was removed, but the 19 mb 48 page BP Accident Investigation Overview, and the 12 mb 147 page Confidential TransOcean Assurance Analysis of the BOP with detailed control diagrams starting at page 56, are still available.
Go to the Deepwater Horizon Data Summary for a wealth of actual data from the Department of Energy.
This is what BP DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. The following images are guaranteed to make you SICK AT HEART.
These images are not for the faint of heart - DO NOT VIEW THEM LIGHTLY.
Really, I mean it. Hold somebody's hand. Grab a tissue.
A brief reference guide to nicknames you may see in the ROV diaries:
- Gertrude, aka Gerty: the oil volcano
- Lizzy: the diamond saw cutter
- Clampy: the cute ROV
- Crunchy: 30 ft shear. bit the pipe, now a movie star
- Wanda: the dispersant sprayer
- laundry basket: yellow thing that brings things up and down
- Thingy: those things, you know, those things
- Shiny Thing: those really neat things
- Ms. Blanche Flo, aka Blanche, aka Flo: the manifold thingy
Thanks to dov12348 for publishing a diary on Oil Terminology.
Technical Info
Here is a tutorial on the sources of well pressure.
H/T to Pluto for finding this much better well casing configuration diagram (PDF).
Here is the initial BP Spill Investigation (PDF) report from 24 May.
The initial approach above was followed by an open hole and a drill pipe magnetic ranging run. After they got to within 5 feet of the blown out well's lower casing they reamed and encased the bottom of the well in cement. They are prepared to start the final 50 feet of drilling to intercept the annulus which is just past the rock. They may still proceed with reaming through the blown well's casing if only to ensure there is cement at that level. (Photos from The Oil Drum)
On 28 June, Kent Wells provided a dual audio and slide presentation that has an accompanying transcript.
A video primer on ROV Watching, from GW Regular sometv.
Video feeds we are watching
Tomtech created a set of playlists for VLC player to partially solve the problem where titles do not identify the ROV.
==== ROV Feeds =====
20876/21507 - Development Driller II's ROV 1
32900/49178 - Development Driller II's ROV 2
41434/41436 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 1
40788/40789 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 2
30948/35246 - HOS Achiever's ROV 1
35461/36301 - HOS Achiever's ROV 2
47146/47147 - Development Driller III's ROV 1
43698/43699 - Development Driller III's ROV 2
39168/39169 - Chouest Holiday ROV 1
40492/40493 - Chouest Holiday ROV 2
58406/21750 - HOS Iron Horse ROV 1
58406/21750 - HOS Iron Horse ROV 2 points to IH #1.
==Restricted to web browser based viewing==
BP videos All the available directly feeds from BP.
WKRG - Mobile/Pensacola (Contains link for an iPhone app at the bottom.)
==Multiple stream feeds (hard on browser/bandwidth)==
Bobo's lightweight ROV Multi-feed: A great low impact multi-view page
Markey's multi-view page
These High-def videos of the spew after the riser was cut were provided by the DOE.
See this thread for more info on using video feeds and on linking to video feeds.
Again, to keep bandwidth down please do not post images or videos.
Links, courtesy of several Kossacks
- DATA
- Sketch Map of Subsea Operations - from Another Kevin
- GeoPlatform - Gulf Response: Mapping the Response to BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
- Kent Wells' technical update, June 10, 2010
- dov12348's oil toxicity links
- dov12348's Ocean currents, wind currents, and hurricane links
- Visualize the spill
- SkyTruth
- 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.
- Department of Energy BP Deepwater Horizon Spill site updates.
- 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.
- Maritime ship tracking -- courtesy of johnsonwax
- NOAA Spill tracking site
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When this well blew on 20 April, my first reaction was to call my sister's boyfriend. He'd applied for a job with Transocean and had friends on the DWH. I'd not heard from him in a while and didn't know if he'd gotten the job; I just knew he was out. By the time I finally heard that he was okay, the people in my senior class that I stay in touch with were all abuzz. Two of our classmates were usually on the DWH, but before the day was through, we'd heard that they were at home when the rig blew. Ten days later, I was on the coast, picking up garbage, walking the beaches of my youth, and instead of salt marsh and pine, all I could smell was oil. I came home, I wrote about it, I had my first visit to the rec-list, and a couple of weeks later I volunteered to help with the liveblogging of the top kill. I had no idea, and I don't think anyone could have imagined, that we'd be sitting here still watching ROVs spray hydrates off of a cap this long after. I certainly couldn't imagine that five months later I'd be planning a wedding and hearing my future brother-in-law talk about his big promotion - but longer commute - to New Mexico every two weeks from Jackson, MS.
Now, almost five months to the day after, the well's been declared dead. I intend to continue staring at ROV feeds for as long as they're there for me to watch; that part's sort of implied by our name. And here, in this diary, I'd like to ask you to respond to the following idea:
The Gulf Watchers have become very important to me. Unfortunately, though, I've not been as active since school started as I was able to be during the summer months. So I feel a little divorced from the "Future of the Gulf Watchers" discussion. But, sixteen hours in two days in my dirty and bug-covered white Corolla, I've had a lot of time to think. The idea I propose is just that - only an idea. Please don't take it as gospel or diktat, or even a suggestion. It's the product of 16 hours of the past 36 behind the wheel.
When AnotherKevin's Ship Status shows our Gulf empty, what would you think if the Gulf Watchers became a moderated weekly digest of Gulf-related news? We could share information and action items on the recovery, and should things require more frequent postings, we could do just that, as needed. For the regular weekly postings, we could allow our family of diarists and commentators the time and space to do what we've done so well all summer long - effect change in the Gulf; share information about the recovery and BP's anticipated continuation of their blatant disregard for safety, rule of law, human decency, ethics, and the laws of physics; and - of course - foster and nurture our little family of bloggers.
I feel very strongly that we've worked too hard and learned too much to let this go without a (pardon the phrase) blowout party. I have no doubt that will happen. I feel equally strongly that we need to not let the knowledge we've accrued or the friendships we've forged fall to the wayside, especially when there's so very much left to do. From migrating birds to the seafood industry to the petroleum giants that still operate in the Gulf, there is far too much to continue watching in the Gulf of Mexico. In my mind, that necessitates our continuing discussion of Gulf-related issues. Just as a core group of people write the IGTNT diaries and support them through research, recs and commentary, a core group of people could write and support a GW series in much the same way.
So: please take a moment to share your thoughts below, and if you're interested in helping re-frame our presence in dKos land, please don't hesitate to mention that as well, and what you'd be willing to do (host a diary? join us on 'post days'? bake cookies? bring the booze?). Please also resurrect (perhaps I shouldn't use that word here) our tagging conventions from this summer. If your comment has to do with our future, would you mind tagging it "FUTURE"? Everyone is welcome. Just like all are welcome in the liveblog, all are welcome to comment on what we should look like going forward.
Finally, please be civil here. I don't care if you think my idea sucks, but I do care, deeply, if you can't tell me that in a constructive, mature way. There've been a lot of pies tossed over this issue, and I hope you'll leave them at home tonight. Everyone who's been here deserves one thing above all else: respect. Don't make me pull out my Aretha Franklin.
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Previous liveblog ROV diaries:
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #386 - Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #386 - The Coroner Won't Pronounce - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #385 - Is it Dead? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #384 - Darryl House
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #383 - Issues - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #382 - Intersection! - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV 381 -- O'Donnell Edition of BP's Gulf Catastrophe - gchaucer2
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #380 - Ranging Run - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #379 - Darryl House
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #378 - We Don't Blink - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Kairos
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #377 - We Ain't No Ways Tired - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #376 - Dancing in the Dark - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #375 - Watching When They Let Us - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
Information on our community can be found in Phil S 33's diary here. That diary having timed out, bigjacbigjacbigjac next took up the cause and posted a new bio diary here. The latest bio diary was posted by Ursoklevar on 7-25 and includes the bios from the previous diaries in alphabetical order by user name.
If you'd like, feel free to join in by sharing a little about yourself there.
in the dark time we held vigil,
we held vigil against the night,
we raged against the storm,
we moved with the force of nature
to right a great wrong,
to howl like the wind,
to hold the line,
to renew an ancient vow,
a sacred purpose,
to recall to life the human spirit,
to safeguard that which is most holy to us,
to forge and reforge,
this, above all, to be true,
to awaken our greater nature,
to commune from the deepest regions of our soul,
to heal this realm, to heal our people,
to guard all life, to guard life,
for this generation,
and all to come,
this is why we hold vigil ~ ~ ArthurPoet ~
| We Are Here |
| We are here. |
| We are watching. |
| Years from now, |
| if anyone asks, |
| we will tell them: |
| We were there. |
| |
| Maybe it will not matter. |
| Maybe nothing matters. |
| But if we throw up our hands now, |
| maybe someday, |
| years from now, |
| we will ask ourselves, |
| why did we not at least keep watch, |
| why did we not? |
| |
| Maybe someday, some of us |
| will talk with someone younger, |
| and tell of the time we watched. |
| Maybe that someone younger |
| will try harder next time, |
| will do more next time, |
| remembering |
| the time we watched. |
| |
| -- bigjacbigjacbigjac |
We're all stunned and horrified by this disaster. Huddling with good people to calculate the damage and monitor progress, have a laugh when we can, share the sorrow we feel, and learn a lot in the process... That's what I'm really here for.
This is how I best cope. And if it turns out to be a useful thing to others, then that's great.
Kimberley
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. On a personal note, I'll ask you to please be kind to each other in our little boats. There's enough hurt going on outside without bringing it here. - khowell
Bandwidth Warning: NO IMAGES and NO VIDEOS. Readers who are on DIALUP will thank you!