I read British newspapers every day, from my computer or from my phone. I decided a long time ago that U.S. news is strangely quiet at times (sometimes even silent), and strangely skewed at other times – especially when it comes to U.S. events. So I read other countries’ news sources. I like BBC, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Telegraph as U.K. sources. I will occasionally read The Australian, but I keep in mind that that is a Murdoch publication. I generally avoid Murdoch publications. I will look at Canadian publications too. And I will check other news and opinion publications too; I try to keep an open mind.
This last week, I read an interesting piece on BP in The Independent. “David Usborne: All eyes on the plume in BP’s crisis centre.” Our writer feels the tension boil as executives in Houston endure an Apollo 13 moment. Friday, 28 May 2010 It was different than anything I’d read in U.S. news publications. Though I had heard/read that BP’s U.S. headquarters are located in Houston, Texas, there was little if anything in the news about the activities at those headquarters. Mostly I heard that BP is trying to get all of the lawsuits that have been filed against them so far, and probably those still to be filed, to be heard in oil-company-friendly Houston, Texas. There are many who are against that, I should add. And today, I found a story which discusses the activities of Greenpeace at the London headquarters of BP. But back to what I read.
The champagne was not popping at BP’s command centre in Houston yesterday. Neck veins maybe. Roughly a third of the oil giant’s top executives, including the CEO, Anthony Hayward, sat alongside the US Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, watching, waiting and trying to breathe.
“There is a lot of adrenalin in there, it is extraordinarily intense,” says Bob Dudley, the firm’s managing director, who ducks out to speak to the sole print journalist let into the building on this morning of especially high stakes.
If this is correct, it is doubtful that the *sole print journalist* is from the U.S. It might even be the author of this story, though it is not so stated. And does this mean that there are no *teevee* or *internet* journalists in the building?
Makes one wonder if a news *blackout* of sorts is in process with this story. It took extreme pressure by Rep. Markey of MA to get BP to continue to provide the live video feed from the ROVs watching and working on the oil gusher. I would not be surprised to learn that BP is trying to avoid talking to news people of any sort if they can, unless it is totally on their terms. It seems clear now, after all, that BP has not been entirely forthcoming with the facts about this oil gusher in the beginning or over time, even with the U.S. President and government.
Nothing is static or boring inside that room, a sort of Mission Control as, in the Gulf of Mexico, BP suffers the equivalent of what befell Apollo 13. On one side of the room, live video is projected on to the walls showing the scene on the sea floor at the site of the sunken rig itself. Robotic submarines shine lights and roam. Eyes are focused mostly on the plume. At the moment it is spewing the mud that is being forced into the well as part of the top kill, and not the darker oil and gas we were seeing before.
But the real drama is on the opposite wall, hung with banks of flat-screen monitors showing the competing pressures of the mud that is being driven in and the oil from below that is trying to defeat it and leak out. When the mud – being pumped with 30,000 horsepower from ships above – is winning the battle, the executives in the room allow themselves momentarily to relax. But then the vital signs go into reverse and it is the mud that is again on the retreat. Everyone along the banks of chairs and desks grows tense again.
I don’t particularly like the comparison of the Gulf of Mexico Deep Horizon oil gusher with Apollo 13. Dramatic yes. But in the end, no one died during the Apollo 13 incident,, which is called a “successful failure”, and a total region of the Planet was not destroyed either. I don’t think this Gulf oil gusher disaster will ever be called a ’successful failure’. The only success I see coming from it will be better and enforced regulations, a cleaned up Interior Mining Management Service (MMS), and a more robust clean and renewable energy development effort. Those are all good, of course, but I’m not sure that gains outweigh the losses. Personally, I can’t think of another event like the Gulf of Mexico Oil Gusher. Possibly Chernobyl. That disaster happened in 1986 and there is still evidence of this disaster on the ground and in the people of the region.
It has already been a five-week haul for everyone at the command centre. Carpeting has been trodden into smudged submission. Posters pinned to a wall displaying a letter of thanks to everyone involved from Mr Hayward are curling at the corners.
There are about 600 people on the job here, although most are shut away behind closed doors. Some emerge, sporting sleeveless blue jackets, identifying their very tightly defined roles: Litigations Supervisor, Incident Commander, Documentation Officer.
Many of them come here to work 12-hour shifts. Food is brought in – lots of chocolate-chip biscuits under clingfilm – and a massage therapist is on hand for those with knots in their spines. “They are an incredible group of professionals,” Mr Dudley says.
What I have heard and read is that this is where President Obama’s crack team of scientists (one of whom was kicked out already ) meet to work on the problem, along side Dept. of Energy Director Mr. Chu, and along side oil industry experts from the other oil companies and other experts in general. This is good news.
Upstairs, in the public relations department, they are rushed off their feet. “And I used to think I had been hired to get BP into the newspaper,” one spokesman sighs. Hundreds of calls come in every day, not just from the media – about 10,000 would-be deep marine inventors have called up so far with ideas – mostly crackpot – for stopping the leak.
Even in this tense hub, levity is allowed occasionally. Don’t call it giggling at a funeral, because no one here thinks it has got to that point yet. But jokes about what better befits the firm’s name have been doing the rounds here for weeks. Bayou Polluter is the most common. Beyond Petroleum just seems so unfortunate right now, Big Pickle very apt.
It has been five weeks since those dread words came to Houston from the well: we have a problem. It may be a day or two more before we know whether the men and women from this command centre can declare an underwater victory and return to their normal day jobs
.
In a sick humor sort of way, nickname invention is funny. 
I had not heard those two he mentions in this story. I ‘like’ them. When Rachel covered the oil gusher one night last week, the segment was called “Beyond Patience.” I’m sure there are plenty of others. Big Problem. Big Polluter. Bad People. British Polluters.
I think we do need to remember that this disaster is not only a BP disaster – Halliburton and Transocean are equally at fault. Halliburton has a rather ugly history of malfeasance to which this disaster has been added. I have not heard of Transocean before now, and am quite sorry I have heard of them now. I dread that we will be learning more about these others too. (And now there is news of another potential problem with an off shore oil rig.
Apparently BP has hired The Evil One’s PR Lady.
With this last about the PR nightmare surrounding this disaster, I am reminded that often trying to show people something positive coming out of a disaster only results in a loss of all credibility. As the saying goes, altered a bit –
Letting the oil out of the ground is easier than putting it back in.
Also heard the various attempts to *fix* this problem as
Trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.
CONTEST:
1. Best Nickname for *BP*
2. Best Analogy to describe the huge *task* to stop the Gulf of Mexico Oil Gusher.
Tags:
BP,
Gulf of Mexico,
Gulf oil gusher,
UK reaction to gulf oil disaster
There is a special place for all of them – where the hinges on the gate are quite hot… too hot to touch even… one can’t get out without leaving a mark! And these are your neighbors 
and you can’t 
for help, and hot does not mean 
and a Wonderful Friday!!!!! 
That is very good news, I think. Something positive, something that everyone could watch and enjoy. 
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