Yesterday when I woke up I felt a pop and then a sharp electrical shock down my right leg. Within an hour I could barely move. I’ve definitely pinched a nerve. Even today my toes on my right foot feel like they have pins and needles, and my calf muscles are clenched. Best remedy is rest, heat, ice and ibuprofen. Normally, that’s what I’d do too.
But then in the evening the Joint Information Center from the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command called and asked me if I wanted a flight out over the controlled burn site — ie the location where the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank. Despite knowing it would be a 3 hour drive roundtrip and likely to be pretty bouncy on the plane, I immediately said yes! How could I not?!!
Sadly, the weather was cloudy and hazy, and the trip was pretty bumpy in parts. So while the pictures aren’t the clearest it was still an amazing opportunity and it is worth the pain I am now enduring (and drug stores here don’t carry over the counter muscle relaxants…oh what I wouldn’t give for some Robax Platinum right now).
Despite that…there were some good pictures. I had been hoping to sell some to the Toronto Star but alas that was not to be. Hopefully there will be more opportunities in the next few weeks.
This is therefore a mostly a pictorial starting with the plane, wetlands, the site itself and some oil visible in the water. There is also a video of the back hatch opening which was very cool. There was one reporter who looked petrified especially when the back was open; I loved it and would have liked to go closer to the edge.
This is the plane we went up on – a Coast Guard C-144. It is pretty loud inside but they provided ear plugs.
The first thing I noticed was how the wetlands looked from the air. It was so clear how much destruction has occurred. Every 34 minutes the equivalent of a football field of wetlands disappears in Louisiana. In these pictures note the straight lines that represent channels that have been cut through the wetlands for boats and/or pipes.
The lighter green in this one is some form of algae.
Because this was a small and fairly casual flight I had the opportunity to go up to the cockpit.
Pilot
Co-pilot
All the thingamajigs
Me on the plane!
The opening of the hatch
An overview of the site…
The Helix is one of the production ships that would normally be siphoning oil.
The rig on the back far right is one of the relief wells being drilled.
Hazy, but these are the two relief wells…
Here you can see streams of oily sheen on the water…the white streaks in the bottom right corner are scrapes on the window.
The circled area indicates a patch of thicker oil floating in the water.
I registered as media with the Unified Command (including obtaining the exemption to travel in the zone closer to the booms/oil when on boats). I had indicated that I was interested in these tours that they had been doing on boats where you would spend an overnight on the Cutter Resolute (which the suspended) and so I guess I was on a list.
The Coast Guard guy I was with said they were doing several of these a day and had been for most of the spill. I don’t know what our actual height was…maybe we were below the 3000ft (I think we were).
There were two cameras and a reporter from WWL (local news), a few other journalists and someone from a response program. 7 of us in total plus the crew.
I had pitched the flight to the Toronto Star but there was a lot of haze so pics weren’t as clear. (I sold another story to the Star on the wildlife rehab center in Theodore AL (if you didn’t see it I will send to you).
Thanks for your stories. Quick questions: What led up to the Unified Command calling you to see if you wanted a ride over the area? Why do you think they’d let someone fly over now and not another time earlier? Who else was with you? What did they think your purpose for flying over was? Just wondering about all these things and thought I’d just ask ‘em here!