THE GULF OIL SPILL-WHEN THERE IS NO PLAN 'A' FOR DISASTER

There was a famous disaster movie director named Irwin Allen. He took on earthquakes, skyscraper fires and ship disasters; then he added a cheesy soap opera plot into the mix.

There was always a body count of faded Hollywood stars in his disaster movies, but the disaster was always conquered by a crazy mix of fantasy sprinkled with a dash of science.

One can only hope that the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico has a happy ending at some point in this real life disaster.

I had no idea that oil exploration companies had no concrete plan to solve a situation like this one.

Right now a giant containment box over the blowout is the first plan for taming this gusher. The strategy is risky and untested at the massive depths of this blowout, but it is the only game in town. So they have to make this work in the best of the Irwin Allen tradition of long odds against an unlikely disaster. Except that this disaster is no longer a Hollywood plot concept.

I live in an area where oil is king. It drives the economy and it is responsible for the fiscal health of an entire country, so I am onside with the oil and gas industry. I don’t generally hug trees, or develop meaningful relationships with furry wildlife, but even I see the incredibly bad disaster planning for deep sea off-shore drilling.

The oil exploration industry seems to have gone with the Las Vegas game plan on this one. The odds were stacked against a catastrophic event like this baby, but they did exist- in similar fashion to the possibility that people win lotteries. In short, it happens and it did happen in this unlucky eco-lottery.

I’m sure that the off-shore drilling industry will pay a price for this oil rig disaster. The blowout protection failed miserably in this situation, so now an Irwin Allen “what if” plotline has become a real life “what do we do now?” fiasco.

And we don’t even have people like Charlton Heston or Lorne Greene around to tackle this problem. I would even take real life versions of those two bad actors and a cheesy soap opera plot to see a happy ending to this one.

Here’s hoping that real life imitates bad movies by the end of the story.

COMMENTS

DENNIS:"Is this a disaster?, Yes. Is it going to create a calamity for the gulf fishing and tourist industries? Yes. But it's not time to throw out the baby with the bath water.

The 'enviornmentalists' are falling out of the 'trees' screaming that we must further regulate the oil industry and prohibit off shore drilling. How about enforcing the regulations on the books right now?

You never hear the "tree huggers' mention the fact that thousands of barrels of crude oil seep directly out of the bottom of the gulf every day and drilling for oil lessens the pressure of that seepage.

You never hear the 'tree huggers' mention that there are thousands of rigs in the gulf and this spill was the direct result of the crew not following "The Rules" already in place. Actions have consequences.

Speaking of actions, who did BP donate the most money to in the presidential election? Barak Obama. You know, the guy that was going to cut down on lobbyists if he was elected?

You never hear the 'tree huggers' mention that BP lobbyists managed to get an exemption for their rigs (including this one) from inspections only last year from the Democratic controlled Congress.

There were "procedures" in place to handle an accident like this in place from the Clinton administration and nobody had to ask anybody what to do. Congress never implimented these procedures and the supplies that were supposed to be in place (like fire booms, for instance) didn't exist.

Yes, BP is directly responsible for this accident but the responsibility for the catastrophe it has turned into lays directly at the feet of the Obama Administration and the Democratic and Republican adminstrations preceeding it!