US Government Response to the Dissaster

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/559191/

And yes the US Government has a serious problem with PR. But there is a response for all of you asking WHERE ARE THEY?

They should emphasize this, and have more Public Information Officers hitting the channels, and not the INCIDENT COMMANDER CG Admiral Thad Allen, but that is another story.

Now this will not put to rest the, they are seating on their kissers, tell that to the USCG members busting their assess... and the meme spread by CBS that they were following BP orders is just BS.

Now I expect people to ignore this, by the way.

keis·ter
   /ˈkistər/ Spelled
–nounSlang.
the buttocks; rump.

Also, keester.

Origin:
1880–85; earlier, as underworld argot, handbag, suitcase, safe; of obscure orig., but words meaning “chest, box” are frequently adduced as sources, e.g., kist1, G Kiste, Yiddish kestl, etc.

and why I also used the busting their assess imagery.

TODAY: Saturday, MAY 22

The Unified Area Command continues to work closely together with the Responsible Party and Federal, State, local and tribal partners in anticipating requirements, identifying response options, and rapidly providing response support.



The following is a synopsis of our daily response efforts:

Total response vessels: 1150

Containment Boom deployed: more than 1.52 million feet

Containment boom available: more than 310,000 feet

Sorbent boom deployed: more than 560,000 feet

Sorbent boom available: more than 1.27 million feet

Total boom deployed: more than 2 million feet (regular plus sorbent boom)

Total boom available: more than 1.58 million feet (regular plus sorbent boom)

Oily water recovered: more than 9.73 million gallons

Surface dispersant used: approximately 630,000 gallons

Subsea dispersant used: approximately 85,000

Total dispersant used: approximately 670,000

Dispersant available: more than 375,000 gallons

Overall personnel responding: more than 24,900



17 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines. These areas include:

Dauphin Island, Ala.

Orange Beach, Ala.

Theodore, Ala.

Panama City, Fla.

Pensacola, Fla.

Port St. Joe, Fla.

St. Marks, Fla.

Amelia, La.

Cocodrie, La.

Grand Isle, La.

Shell Beach, La.

Slidell, La.

St. Mary, La.

Venice, La.

Biloxi, Miss.

Pascagoula, Miss.

Pass Christian, Miss.



For updated NOAA trajectory maps, click here.

Weather conditions for May 21:

Winds from the Southeast at 12-15 knots in the morning, higher gusts in the evening. 4-5 foot seas, protected waters are rough.

Hotlines:

* For information about the response effort, visit www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com.
* To contact the Deepwater Horizon Joint Information Center, call (985) 902-5231.
* To volunteer, or to report oiled shoreline, call (866) 448-5816. Volunteer opportunities can also be found here.
* To submit your vessel as a vessel of opportunity skimming system, or to submit alternative response technology, services, or products, call 281-366-5511.
* To report oiled wildlife, call (866) 557-1401. Messages will be checked hourly.
* For information about validated environmental air and water sampling results, visit www.epa.gov/bpspill.
* For National Park Service updates about potential park closures, resources at risk, and NPS actions to protect vital park space and wildlife, visit http://www.nps.gov/aboutus/oil-spill-response.htm.
* For Fish and Wildlife Service's updates about response along the Gulf Coast and the status of national wildlife refuges, visit http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/.
* To file a claim, or report spill-related damage, call BP’s helpline at (800) 440-0858. A BP fact sheet with additional information is available here. For those who have already pursued the BP claims process and are not satisfied with BP’s resolution, can call the Coast Guard at (800) 280-7118. More information about what types of damages are eligible for compensation under the Oil Pollution Act as well as guidance on procedures to seek that compensation can be found here.

:-)

:hi:

If a plane were to go down, and take with it the lives of the heads of Goldman Sachs, the Treasury and The Federal Reserve, do you think that Obama would find time in his schedule to visit the wake and the funerals?

The people of the Gulf states are up to their knees in muck. An entire ecological system is about to die off. The people and the environment need simple things like some hundreds and thousands of friggin' sand bags.

But our Chief Executive is all, business as usual, cuz you know, that 1990 law prevents us at the WH from worrying about anything like this.

that BP really did not know what to do. Once the magnitude of the disaster became clear.

I'm the first to criticize Obama for his mistakes. But there really isn't any good alternative for him in this situation. It's just a nearly impossible situation.

At least he is not making it worse by going in there and making an even bigger mess than is already there.

I think Obama is doing the right thing, the only thing he can do, this time around.

I am known on this site for my criticism of Obama.

I think you are off... what you expect him to PERSONALLY take charge? Having worked a few disasters and even managed to KEEP A PRESIDENT off my back for 12 hours... the last thing they need is the President on scene.

Ask any EMS worker. They might be able to use small words to explain to you why a VIP truly gets in the way.

The exception to this rule actually was Three Mile Island. In that case POTUS WAS a qualified Nuke... so he could ask a few pointed questions.

that means we do not have a handle on this.

BP continues to first and foremost to act in their own interests which means to maintain profit and mitigate responsibility for damages.
Those things probably find shutting off the flow to be fairly crucial but stopping the flow and reducing damage to wildlife and the environment are not primary behavior drivers for these folks.
Simply stated, if they could get away with just slinking off to drill another lease right now and leave the gusher flowing they would if that was the path to the most profit and the highest share price.

They cannot be trusted. Their equipment and personnel must be requisitioned and placed under the command of a more responsible party (preferably a state managed organization of an ally but another private company if it must be), at gun point if needed.

So is that a RW meme?

Is this Coast Guard Admiral overriding the EPA?

Your link gave no information on command and control that I saw, it was pictures, a timeline, and a listing of response.

If you have, you'd understand how an incident command system works.

Otherwise, you don't... so to help you here is a primer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_Command_System

quit contradicting them!

them are pesky...

:hi:

And them are the equivalent of asking for a pony too...

:-)

There are days I want to do this

:banghead:

I agree, quite a response.

Fucking poutragers, expecting competence.

And that's probably being generous.

The rest is what they "suspect", or "think" or "hope" is happening in combination with what they hear from MSM sources who themselves don't know, don't care, or are intentionally delivering misinformation.

I think you'll agree.

:hi:

in the PR department, and I actually get it why... having handled a few messes myself, never to this extent, I know that when you are busy... at times you forget to ahem brief the media... and the population. It is not out of being bad, just lack of time... and in the end the rumor mill bytes you in the ass.

I knew enough after a few... to brief my PIO and send him\her on his\her way every few hours... the USCG needs to do this, at least once a day. And a website is not enough,

Water and sediment sampling
What sampling is EPA doing along the beaches?

EPA is currently collecting and analyzing water and sediment samples to help states and other federal agencies understand the immediate and long-term impacts of oil contamination along the Gulf coast. The results and the interpretation of all data collected by EPA will be posted to www.epa.gov/bpspill.


Water and sediment samples are being taken prior to oil reaching the area to determine water quality and sediment conditions that are typical of selected bays and beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. This data will be used to supplement existing data generated from previous water quality surveys conducted by states, EPA, and others.

Water sampling will continue once the oil reaches the shore; periodic samples will be collected to document water quality changes. EPA will make data publicly available as quickly as possible. Other state and federal agencies make beach closure and seafood harvesting and consumption determinations, but the data generated by EPA will assist in their evaluations.

http://www.d8externalaffairs.com/go/doc/2931/542555/

Scuttlebutt is that BP insists on using a dispersant known to be less effective and more toxic banned in some other industrialized countries that is produced by a "former" subsidiary.

Directive Issued Requiring BP to Identify and Use Less Toxic, More Effective Dispersant
EPA issued a directive requiring BP to identify and use a less toxic and more effective dispersant from the list of EPA authorized dispersants. Dispersants are a chemical used to break up oil into small droplets so that they are more easily degraded.

The directive requires BP to identify a less toxic alternative—to be used both on the surface and under the water at the source of the oil leak—within 24 hours and to begin using the less toxic dispersant within 72 hours of submitting the alternative. If BP is unable to identify available alternative dispersant products, BP must provide the Coast Guard and EPA with a detailed description of the alternative dispersants investigated, and the reason they believe those products did not meet the required standards. EPA’s directive to BP can be found here. http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/dispersants.html

1. BP seems to be exercising more authority than the GOV
2. the GOV seems to be in PR collusion with BP to minimize the scale of this ongoing, epic disaster
3. not nearly enough is being done judging by the activity down there... there should be a MASSIVE ARMY of activity down there on the scale of IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN, and we should be seeing aid pouring in from ABROAD.

why don't we see ANY aid from our international partners?

I will tell you why, because our gov is bought and paid for by BIG OIL and FINANCE.

Here's the timeline from the WH's blog. Happy reading.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/05/ongoing-administration-wide-response-deepwater-bp-oil-spill

that's gotta be one of the laziest 'rebuttals' i've seen in a while... good luck with that.

I mean that would contradict the meme that they are just sitting on them assess.

Good reads are Incident Command System and National Incident Management System, both FEMA pubs. Even the Red Cross and the Salvation Army use ICS.

I would personally order Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to take over the incident response from BP and assemble a crack team of oil rig workers. Then, having come to my senses, I would uncancel the Orion moon program, and have Neil Armstrong oversee the NASA retrofit of the orion capsules for deep sea usage. They would then plan a daring mission to take a nuclear warhead to the leak-site at the bottom of the ocean and detonate it, thereby sealing the leak.

In the meantime (and this is the MOST important part), I would commission Aerosmith to write a rock-ballad about the entire situation. Then, to ensure that the American people know that I'm on top of it, I would hold a press event in which I would have Aerosmith perform the said power-ballad as I walk in slow-motion with Bruce Willis and his band of aquanauts to the Orion capsules, which will be lowered into the ocean while F-16s fly overhead.

Once at the leak-site, something will inevitably go wrong, and one person will be forced to remain in one of the capsules and detonate the nuke manually. I will personally order that this person be Ben Affleck, because well... that would ensure votes in 2012 from those who have watched Gigli or Surviving Christmas...

:rofl:

Well, he could.

governs the government's response:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8396797

It is a process that requires some time for assessment and planning of a response.

News media should be asking the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA about their plans on this.

:yourock:

But it's just so much fun to complain and pout! How dare you actually point out that something is being done? Spoilsport. (Sarcasm)