She compares the response to the current crisis with the response 30 years ago to similar events. Have we learned anything?
I, like everybody else, am distressed and fed up with BP and their inability to prevent, and later fix this problem. I am not going to offer solutions on how to cap it, but I wonder.
When Boeing releases a new aircraft, they cannot fly it commercially until the FAA does a thorough inspection, including emergency systems. Has any regulatory agency ever tested these features in a new oil well? Has BP, or any other oil company?
Why hasn’t the government closed all the other wells (nearly 4,000 of them in the Gulf of Mexico alone) for inspection? What are they waiting for? BP and the oil rig operators have proven that they have the technology to search for oil, find it and drill for it. What they have also shown is that they are totally unprepared to deal with an emergency. What? Surely they thought to include and test a clamping system for an emergency well shutdown, hadn’t they? Doesn’t seem it worked, does it?
I feel for the people of the area whose livelihood is being destroyed. I feel for the wetlands and marshes and all the birds and other species that are being killed, when they have no clue what’s going on around them as they go on their everyday feeding and living routines. And I fear for Florida, where I am, when (unfortunately not if), the oil catches the Loop and the Gulf currents and merrily moves around the coast of Florida. Happy thoughts.
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