Oil Expert Matt Simmons: "We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states, can you imagine evacuating 20 million people? This story is 80 times worse than I thought."
I’ve posted a few articles on oil expert Matt Simmons’ take on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. The problem now is bad weather is moving in to complicate matters due to a tropical wave in the Caribbean that might move into the gulf. I personally don’t know enough about how likely an evacuation could be and I’m guessing that this would have to get fairly Katrina like before people were made to evacuate, but even if the storm is not as bad as a Katrina, any blowing around of that oil has got to be problematic as any hurricane would certainly bring the stuff inland. Simmons claims that the amount of oil being spilled is far greater than BP and the government are admitting and that there’s an oil lake at the bottom of the gulf covering 40% of it now. They are simply not going to be able to contain the spill let along get the oil up anytime soon.
Let’s just hope we dodge a bullet on this current weather pattern, but with hurricane season gearing up, we’ll also need to dodge a hail of bullets. I can’t imagine the ensuing chaos of evacuating 20 million people.
Potential bad weather in oil cleanup mix
VENICE, La., June 23 (UPI) — A tropical wave in the Caribbean could move into the Gulf of Mexico carrying potentially more bad news for oil cleanup efforts, forecasters say.
“We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states,” Matt Simmons, founder of investment oil firm Simmons and Co., direly predicted in a Washington Post article published Wednesday. “Can you imagine evacuating 20 million people? … This story is 80 times worse than I thought.”
AccuWeather.com said Wednesday the strength of the system expected to enter the gulf by early next week is questionable, but there is a risk of squalls and rough seas in oil slick and cleanup-containment operation areas.
Also troubling is the extent of the damage to the crippled Transocean Deepwater Horizon well that exploded April 20 and sank, killing 11 workers, the newspaper said. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, national incident commander, has said there are no indications of additional leaks on the gulf floor, but added the well could be damaged below the mud line.
“We’re mitigating risk on the relief well by drilling a second relief well alongside it,” he said.
Allen said the possibility of further damage is why the top kill effort last month was stopped. Officials feared that continued pumping of heavy mud into the well could damage the casing and open new channels for leakage into rock.
“I think that one thing that nobody knows is the condition of the well bore from below the blowout preventer down to the actual oil field itself,” Allen said during a briefing last week. “We don’t know if the well bore has been compromised or not.”
Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suspended creating offshore trajectory maps, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported. NOAA said it temporarily stopped its offshore forecast because of the lack of recent observations that confirm significant amounts of oil flowing into offshore areas, among other things. Officials said the forecasts would resume if the threat returns.
