Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Video Shows Federal Officials Knew Quickly of Potential for Massive Oil Flow in Gulf Spill
AL.com / Birmingham Press-Register ^ | 5/1/2010 - Yes, MAY 1st | Ben Raines

Posted on 06/14/2010 6:46:10 PM PDT by unspun

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration video, shot as officials coordinated response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, shows that federal officials almost immediately worried that the oil well could leak up to 110,000 barrels per day, or 4.6 million gallons.

The video appears on a federal Web site.

It was filmed in Seattle, at NOAA's Western Regional Center, as scientists and federal officials in Seattle, Houston and New Orleans engaged in telephone conferences, according to a companion document on the Web site.

NOAA meeting
View full sizeFederal officials discuss the Gulf of Mexico oil spill soon after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig. The image is a still frame from a NOAA Web site video depicting the meeting at the agency's Western Regional Center in Seattle.

The video appears to have been edited, and it was shot by a person carrying a camera from room to room.

In it, officials are discussing the search for survivors of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. There is a hand-drawn map of the spill dated April 22. At one point, the video freezes on a sign next to a door that reads, "War Room."

In one scene, officials say that the estimate for the leak in a worst-case scenario is between 65,000 and 100,000 barrels per day. A dry erase board on the wall reads "Estim: 64,000 to 110,000 bbls/day. CNN reported 300,000 gal/day."

The high end of the estimate, 110,000 barrels, is about 4.6 million gallons. At that spill rate, 32 million gallons of oil would enter the Gulf every week. By comparison, the entire Exxon Valdez spill was about 11 million gallons.

Officials estimate current flow from the damaged well at 210,000 gallons a day.

It is unclear from the video what events would have to transpire to raise the flow rate higher.

A confidential NOAA report, dated April 28 and circulated among federal agencies, makes similar projections regarding spill size in a worst-case situation.

422map_framegrab.jpg
View full size
A hand-drawn map of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill dated April 22, 2010, is seen in this image from a video downloaded from the NOAA Web site. The video shows federal officials discussing the oil spill soon after the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

It describes newly discovered leaks in the tangle of riser pipe, attributing them to ongoing erosion of the pipe. The riser pipe, in this case about 5,000 feet long, connects the wellhead on the sea floor to the drilling rig on the surface.

"If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked," reads the report.

On Thursday, the day after the NOAA report was circulated, BP officials said they were worried about "erosion" of the piping.

Sand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. The raw crude rising from the bottom of a well carries sand and other abrasive materials. In effect, the oil is sandblasting the piping as it rushes through with tremendous force, according to petroleum engineers.

"I think we need to be prepared for it to be the spill of the decade," Debbie Payton of NOAA, the meeting's coordinator, says during the NOAA video.

NOAA did not immediately respond to the Press-Register's request for comment on the video.

whiteboard_framegrab.jpg
View full sizeA still image from a video downloaded from the NOAA Web site shows a dry erase board with figures depicting the potential oil flow. Oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico since the offshore drilling rig exploded and sank. Eleven oil rig workers are missing and presumed to be dead.
Related topics [I.O.: in AL.com]: Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Gulf oil spill, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, oil spill Read this at it's original site, published May 1 at AL.com. http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/video_shows_federal_officials.html


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: corruption; deepwaterhorizon; gulfgusher; obama; obamaskatrina; whendidobamaknowit
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-79 next last
To: Cobra64

Let it run... shut down domestic oil... part of the plan.

Shut the hell up and get back in your gas line.


21 posted on 06/14/2010 7:44:35 PM PDT by glock rocks (Wait, what?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: unspun; Ernest_at_the_Beach

Interesting that this video was able to make it out of the facility.


22 posted on 06/14/2010 7:46:44 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: unspun
I have not believed that Obama and those surrounding him are either incompetent or stupid -- they know exactly what they are doing. His ideology does not come from Kenya or anywhere else other than the American radical left.

He wanted this oil spill to reach catastrophic proportions to demonize big oil to the vast majority of Americans. This gives him the moral high ground as he "puts his boot on the neck" of yet another sector of the American economy. His foreign policy has worked to the benefit of just those countries and movements praised by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

The anger the left has with him is just that he hasn't moved boldly or quickly enough.

23 posted on 06/14/2010 7:51:21 PM PDT by JimSEA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: STARWISE; onyx; maggief; SE Mom; hoosiermama; Hoodat

Zero caught in yet another lie ping!


24 posted on 06/14/2010 7:57:27 PM PDT by penelopesire ("Did you plug the hole yet daddy?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: unspun

Louisiana, save yourself!

The people “saving” you right now couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.

Same goes for you, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida!!


25 posted on 06/14/2010 7:58:02 PM PDT by Painesright
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: unspun
A room full of smoking guns.

I'll say! I wonder if anyone in that room will pull the trigger in getting this out to the MSM.

26 posted on 06/14/2010 8:01:20 PM PDT by Cobra64
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Cobra64; All

Updated:

http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2010/06/video-shows-us-government-well-aware-in.html

The truth has been hiding in plain sight, since May Day, at AL.com. Visit the government at work, collecting data on what is apparently the 22nd, 23rd, or 24th of April — scientists for an United States government which refused clean-up help then and refuses help now — an U.S. government which, it would seem, has lied to us, all this time. Listen to the report.

At 6 minutes 35 seconds, the man on the phone says, “I’ve heard two different estimates on, some’n, far as uh, between sixty-five and a hundred thousand barrels a day.”

And see what is already written on the white board. Those are numbers much, much higher than the story they gave to the public — until perhaps yesterday or today.

Last Wednesday evening, 6/11, I interviewed a director level scientist of BP, Mark Proegler, working for Deepwater Horizon Unified Command. He recounted to me that the official report of the rate of the leak was 5,000 barrels per day, at first. Then, he said, the U.S. government put together two technical groups to assess the flow and they performed numerous tests. Their two results, according to the government, were between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels per day, from one group and between 12,000 to 25,000 barrels per day, from the other. Compare these numbers with the evidence shown here: 65,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. Look for the words used around those numbers. Do you see words such as “could become?” The white board says “reported.” That is corroborated by the man on the telephone.


27 posted on 06/14/2010 8:08:24 PM PDT by unspun (It's individual, state & national sovereignties, 'stupid' - investigatingobama.blogspot.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Cobra64
This picture makes me vomit. A room full of civil service protected, union members dressed like hillbillies pretending to have a friggin clue! What a joke! For this we find ourselves $13 trillion in the hole! These goofs should be looked upon as BIOFUEL!
28 posted on 06/14/2010 8:08:37 PM PDT by April Lexington (Study the constitution so you know what they are taking away!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: unspun

I’ve held my tongue for a while on this BP “spill.”

IF it wasn’t spilled ON PURPOSE, then it is the most convenient “crisis” in human history.

HERE THEY COME WITH CAP ‘N TAX, FOLKS!

I know this is WAY outside the box for most people, but BP is just a company that can be manipulated by the world’s elite to help usher in the hard-left’s agenda and bring us ever closer to a one-world government.

They needed this event desperately after their problems with email a while back.

Prediction: The leak will continue until Cap ‘N Tax passes, or until it has become an historical environmental disaster.

Let me add: If they pass Cap ‘N Tax we do not have a chance in hell of saving the United States from a one-world hard left government.

Freepers, Americans, you had better get ready to work your *sses off to hault this agenda.

This is the final battle for the United States of America.


29 posted on 06/14/2010 8:11:52 PM PDT by Boucheau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Pardon, that conversation with BP/Unified Command was Wednesday 6/9.


30 posted on 06/14/2010 8:22:48 PM PDT by unspun (It's individual, state & national sovereignties, 'stupid' - investigatingobama.blogspot.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: unspun

31 posted on 06/14/2010 8:23:26 PM PDT by GalaxieFiveHundred
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: unspun

32 posted on 06/14/2010 8:25:32 PM PDT by Manic_Episode (Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: unspun

I want to know why the the bolts on the flang of the damaged riser wer not cut off and a piece put in place and bolted onto the open flange.

Why was that not done as soon as they realized the BOP was not working?


33 posted on 06/14/2010 8:31:19 PM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

A picture to download, along with the rest of this.

34 posted on 06/14/2010 8:31:19 PM PDT by unspun (It's individual, state & national sovereignties, 'stupid' - investigatingobama.blogspot.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: unspun

he’s a schlub.


35 posted on 06/14/2010 8:33:58 PM PDT by bitt ( "If this is what Team Obama calls "saved," then please, let me give purgatory a shot. ")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: unspun

Heckuva job, Barry!


36 posted on 06/14/2010 8:47:27 PM PDT by counterpunch (Heckuva job, Barry!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: penelopesire

Add this information to what we know about NALCO and the rejection of help from other countries and what do you get?


37 posted on 06/14/2010 8:55:08 PM PDT by hoosiermama (ONLY DEAD FISH GO WITH THE FLOW.......I am swimming with Sarahcudah! Sarah has read the tealeaves.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Leo Carpathian
Another FReeper pointed Zero shuts down US offshore drilling, Soros picks up a lot equipment real cheap and moves it all to his deal off of Brazil :^(
38 posted on 06/14/2010 9:01:22 PM PDT by investigateworld (Abortion stops a beating Heart)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: hoosiermama

Well, among other things....high treason.


39 posted on 06/14/2010 9:10:22 PM PDT by XenaLee (The only good commie is a dead commie.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: justsaynomore

Ping. Thought you’d want to see this.


40 posted on 06/14/2010 9:20:17 PM PDT by Tucker822
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-79 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson