Louisiana Oil Rig Explosion: Deep Water Horizon Workers Still Missing

[DeSwiss]

Source: Huffington Post (AP)

Louisiana Oil Rig Explosion: Deep Water Horizon Workers Still Missing

Huffington Post | KEVIN McGILL | 04/21/10 07:40 AM | AP



NEW ORLEANS — At least 11 people were missing and seven injured after an explosion and fire at an oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana, the Coast Guard said Wednesday. Most of the 126 people were believed to have escaped safely after the explosion at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry said. It happened about 52 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip.

The rig was still burning Wednesday morning and was listing about 10 degrees, O'Berry said. "It's burning pretty good and there's no estimate on when the fire will be put out," O'Berry said. O'Berry said there were conflicting reports coming in but at least 11 – and possibly as many as 15 – were missing. "We're hoping everyone's in a life raft," he said.

Seven workers were airlifted to a Naval air station near New Orleans, then taken to hospitals. He said two of the seven were taken to a trauma center in Mobile, Ala., where there is a burn unit. O'Berry said many workers who escaped the rig were being brought to land on a workboat while authorities searched the Gulf of Mexico for any signs of lifeboats.

The rig was drilling but was not in production, according to Greg Panegos, spokesman for its owner, Transocean Ltd., in Houston. The rig was under contract to BP.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/louisiana-oil-rig-explosi_n_545652.html

[ChicagoSuz219]

1. This is awful...

...haven't heard anything about it on tv.

[FreakinDJ]

2. Why is it always BP

[nolabear]

3. Oh dear. I have a stepbrother on one of those rigs.

Wish I knew which one.

[Merchant Marine]

24. The rig is named the "Deepwater Horizon"

[SkyDaddy7]

4. Stupid Liberals!

See you anti-oil anti-American Communist Liberals Oil rigs are safe...Those blown off the oil rig are being looked for and the rest had access to life rafts due to the "saftey first" plan of BP. The resulting fire is burning off most of the oil that would otherwise spilled into the ocean! Maybe this will teach you Liberlas not to complain about off shore drilling!

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[liberal N proud]

5. +1

[ensho]

6. big oil killing people, killing life in the Gulf of Mexico

nt

[Turbineguy]

7. We know the only reason they drill

is because they are greedy and like to kill people.

Now, where's a protest I can drive to?

[Lochloosa]

8. Pic

In this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, Petty Officer James Peterson collects samples of spilled oil from a pipeline operated by Chevron Pipe Line Company in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge near Venice, La., Tuesday, April 6, 2010. (AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard)
2:29 p.m. ET, 4/7/10

Drill Baby Drill

[Crowman1979]

9. Kill, baby, Kill! As Sarah Palin would actually say!

Dumb Bitch! :mad:

[Enrique]

10. my prediction: company cut corners on safety

with jobs so scarce, the workers tolerated a lot more risk, without quitting and without complaining.

The same goes for other abuses other than safety, such as wage theft.

I wonder whether this was a union facility?

[Arctic Dave]

11. May have hit a shallow gas pocket.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. there is nothing truly safe about this kind of work.

Hard, scary/boring/unpredictable, isolated, and then you have storms. Not itty bitty rain drops that keep falling on your head, but BIG HUGE ENORGMOUS FUCKING STORMS THAT REMOVE BUILDINGS, FLOOD CITIES, AND CHANGE COASTLINES. Her and himacanes. And these guys get to stay bunkered down in these contraptions, hoping that the brunt of the storm misses them.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Obama Administration wants more drilling off our shores

which means more accidents and spills.

Thanks, bud!

[daleo]

14. As oil gets more scarce

It gets more expensive, more dangerous, and more destructive to the environment to find and extract the remaining reserves. This is a key feature of the 'peak oil' phenomenon.

[Xipe Totec]

15. Oil rig explodes off La.; 11 missing, 17 hurt

Source: Associated Press

?

NEW ORLEANS – Rescuers in helicopters and boats searched the Gulf of Mexico for 11 missing workers Wednesday after a thunderous explosion rocked a huge oil drilling platform and lit up the night sky with a pillar of flame. Seventeen people were injured, four critically.

The blast Tuesday night aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig 50 miles off the Louisiana coast could prove to be one of the nation's deadliest offshore drilling accidents of the past half-century.

The Coast Guard held out hope that the missing workers escaped in one of the platform's covered lifeboats.

Nearly 24 hours after the explosion, the roughly 400-by-250-foot rig continued to burn, and authorities could not say when the flames might die out. A column of boiling black smoke rose hundreds of feet over the Gulf of Mexico as fireboats shot streams of water at the blaze.

"We're hoping everyone's in a life raft," Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry said.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_bi_ge/us_louisiana_oil_rig_explosion

[uppityperson]

16. Deja wtf?

[Beavker]

17. Oil Rig, Coal Mine Explosions, Nuclear Plants being shut down...

You know what doesn't explode? Fucking solar panels and wind turbines.

[Bluebear]

18. +

[uppityperson]

19. wind turbine disintegration.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/27/disintegrating_turbine/

Not as bad as coal mine, oil rig, nuke plants, but still, fun videos at that link.

[daleo]

21. Nice visual

Nobody hurt though.

[truthisfreedom]

22. Newer wind turbines don't disintegate.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

23. Pretty cool video.

They've had a few problems with some here also.

Bad gluing blamed for mishaps at wind farm

It all came down to glue. And how it was misapplied by workers. Spanish wind-energy company Gamesa said "insufficient and irregular distribution of glue" caused large pieces to break off seven turbine blades at the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm near Lilly, Cambria County. No one was injured during the mishap in mid-March, but pieces of the blades flew more than 500 feet, according to residents.

From a distance, it is hard to comprehend how large the Gamesa turbine blades are - 140 feet long, about 14 feet wide and weighing about 7 tons, according to the company.

"It's something the size of a yacht flying through the air," said Brian Alger, an analyst who covers the wind-energy industry for Strata Capital Management in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Several of the blade pieces landed on property owned by James A. Davis, 69, of Lilly, and leased in part to Gamesa. One piece was thrown more than 500 feet before coming down through the trees, Davis said. That would put it outside the official 300-foot safety zone around each turbine.

Rest of article detailing what caused the failures.


http://www.windaction.org/news/9393

We need them, but like almost everything else in life, the safety and engineering still comes down to humans doing their job correctly.

[nebenaube]

20. priceless point made

kudos

[Merchant Marine]

25. If those 11 guys aren't in a lifeboat somewhere...

They're dead. Either incinerated in the blast or trapped somewhere belowdecks.

I have it on good authority that the fire on the rig is still burning and the rig is currently listing to 13 degrees from all the water they have pumped on board to fight the fire. It's now a race for the ROV to shut off the riser and cut off the flow of gas to the rig before they hit the down flooding angle for the anchor lockers and the whole thing rolls over and sinks.

What bothers me is the eagerness with which the members of this forum, in LBN and Energy, are willing to dance on the graves of these American workers before the fires are even out. Please do not use their deaths to make some sort of half-assed political statement before they are even in the ground.

[Merchant Marine]

26. 11 are missing after blast in Gulf of Mexico

Source: Chron NewsWatch: Energy

There were 126 crew members aboard the semi-submersible rig, owned and operated by Transocean, who had only minutes to abandon the platform before it was swallowed in fire, according to company officials.
“This would have happened very, very rapidly,” said Adrian Rose, vice president of quality, health, safety and environment for Transocean, the largest drilling contractor in the world, which is based in Switzerland but keeps major offices in Houston.
Three people were critically injured among 17 who were flown by air ambulance to hospitals in New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., for treatment after the fire broke out around 10 p.m. Tuesday.
Flames were so bright that flight paramedic Marc Creswell, wearing night vision goggles, could see them from 70 miles away, despite the black, billowing smoke.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6968685.html

---

Sounds like a very bad situation. The odds are not good that they will find those 11 missing crewmen. They were either killed in the blast or are still trapped on the rig, which I have on good authority is now listing past 13 degrees due to the firefighting water pumped aboard.

The good news is that the Coast Guard is on top of it, there are Spill Response boats on scene and there is an ROV in the process of closing the riser and shutting off the flow of hydrocarbons. If those missing people are in the water somewhere, they'll be found soon. If not they're probably already dead.

[Sherman A1]

27. One's heart goes out to the families of those injured and killed

first the mine accident and now this. We need to push forward on renewable energy as fast a possible, it will take time, but it must be done.

[Merchant Marine]

28. New update, the rig has sunk.

The USCG stated at 1245 that the rig capsized and sank and the fire is out.

Apparently another rescue capsule has been found. Hopefully that's the 11 missing crew.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/Oil-rig-survivors-back-on-land-91800739.html