Staffers at a BP oil spill response centre in Louisiana are preparing for a long battle as they try to contain the “blob” of oil from a ruptured Gulf of Mexico well that is fouling coastal waters and beaches.
The well is leaking crude at a rate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day despite a number of attempts by BP to cap it, polluting wildlife refuges in Louisiana, barrier islands in Mississippi and Alabama and some of Florida’s famous beaches.
While officials in a command centre in BP’s US headquarters in Houston work on halting the subsea flow of oil, an even bigger team near Houma, Louisiana, is dealing with the spill on the water’s surface and overseeing shoreline cleanup operations for Louisiana, the state hardest hit by the spill.
Other BP command centres in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida manage the shoreline response in those states.
Up to 1,000 people, including military personnel, BP officials and scientists, work at the center in Houma in a building that is normally a BP training centre for offshore engineers. Operations are conducted during daylight hours.
Every hotel room in Houma and the surrounding area has been booked for an indefinite period to accommodate the workers.
A free dry-cleaning service has been added, while the building’s kitchen - which was designed to cook breakfast and lunch for 50 to 75 people – has been beefed up to turn out free meals 24 hours a day.
“We’ve got the best food (of all the command centres),” Mike Utsler, the incident commander and effective head of the center in Houma, told Reuters during a recent visit.
The emphasis on food is a deliberate strategy to keep morale high. Some staff came onboard expecting a shorter haul but they no longer know how long they will be away from home.
“We’ll rotate out for a few days (every two weeks) until it’s over,” said Barbara Callahan of the International Bird Rescue Research Centre.
Some personnel work 14 days on, 14 days off, but others have much shorter breaks. Utsler has not had a day off since he flew down from Alaska 38 days ago.
