Remember when the Deepwater Horizon story was just 'oil spill in the Gulf'?

I was working on a fishing boat out of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and the real story wasn't the initial explosion. It was the 87 days of failed 'top kills' and 'junk shots' they didn't show on TV, while the oil kept coming. We watched the whole cleanup theater happen from the water, knowing it was barely touching the sides. Anyone else from the Gulf Coast remember how different the reality felt from the nightly news updates?

4 comments

4 Comments

ray_sullivan15d agoMost Upvoted

and @ramirez.vera you asked about the theater. it was everything. they'd show these guys in hazmat suits scrubbing rocks on the news but you'd be out on the water and there weren't nearly enough boats or materials to actually handle it. the dispersant they were spraying was making everything worse, just pushing the oil down where you couldn't see it. i sat there watching the news one night talking about how many boom miles they'd laid and knew it was just for show because half of it washed up on our beach within a week anyway. the whole thing felt staged for the cameras while the actual mess kept spreading.

hall.jenny3mo ago

The news coverage helped us understand the scale of the disaster, though.

the_faith3mo ago

Yeah, the news made it feel far away. It was a mess on the ground though, right @hall.jenny? Did you see much of it yourself?

ramirez.vera3mo ago

What cleanup theater did you see from the water?