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| Home Front: Politix |
| Where's the Navy? |
| 2010-06-21 |
| Posted by:BrerRabbit |
| #8 It was a clear, calm night, and the smooth, black Gulf glowed with jellyfish. The visibility was 10 miles, and a first-quarter moon was setting. Despite the pressure problems in the well, engineers decided at about 8 p.m. to resume extracting mud. At 9 p.m., the Bankston was told to stand by for more. As the operation got under way, the pressure in part of the well spiked to 3,500 pounds per square inch, seven times what it had been before. Capt. Alwin Landry of the Bankston heard a prolonged hiss of gas, and then mud erupted from the derrick. "Sort of a black rain," Landry recalled. He'd been mudded before, but it had always been from a broken hose. He sounded the general alarm to muster off-duty crew, and then radioed the Deepwater Horizon. Trouble with the well, he was told. "They said to go 500 meters away and stand by. . . . I heard the concern in the voice of the operator." Landry, a captain who'd been supplying drilling rigs for 14 years, had never seen anything quite like this. He ordered the mud hose uncoupled and made ready to move. A mile below on the seabed, a torrent of gas had seeped into the drill pipe, shot through a malfunctioning blowout preventer and bulldozed through the remaining mud, experts now think. Paul Erickson, the chief mate aboard the Bankston, had noticed seagulls and egrets swarming the rig lately. Now, with a cloud of heavy gas settling over the rig and a geyser spewing from the derrick, he saw birds falling from the sky like feathery hail. Gas apparently was seeping into the rig's main engines, too; their mechanical tempo surged as they fed on it. At 9:53 p.m., two or three minutes after the gas began venting, Landry saw a green flash on the rig's deck, followed by two thunderous concussions. First the main engines ignited, followed seconds later by a blast in the mud room. The Bankston went into action. After action citation (pdf) |
| Posted by: KBK 2010-06-21 22:46 |
| #7 No, junkiron, we have not all read the story of the Bankston, why don't you provide us with a source link? AoS |
| Posted by: Steve White 2010-06-21 22:14 |
| #6 Due to a long list of reasons: 1. The Navy isn't going to go in unless it's ordered to. 2. The Navy isn't going to volunteer. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-06-21 21:48 |
| #5 I am sure you have all read the story of the heroic crew of the Bankston who immediately launched their 16-foot "fast recovery craft" into the burning water beneath the Rig and risked their own lives to rescue the survivors. The crew of the Bankston pulled all 115 of the survivors from the water while the Coast Guard sat back and did nothing. Injured survivors were treated in the Bankston's hospital room. According to surviving crew members of the Deepwater Horizon, oil workers from the rig were held captive by the Coast Guard within sight of the burning rig for up to two days after the April 20 explosion, while attorneys attempted to convince them to sign legal documents stating that they were unharmed by the incident. The men claim that they were forbidden from having any contact with concerned loved ones during that time, and were told they would not be able to go home until they signed the documents they were presented with. Three Coast Guard aircraft and one cutter suffered serious mechanical problems that delayed, cut short or aborted rescue missions during the Gulf incident. The Coast Guard averaged one problem for every seven rescue sorties it operated during the first three days of the oil spill crisis in April, according to Coast Guard logs. From beginning to end this entire disaster is the result of incompetent government over regulation, mismanagement, unauthorized micro management, political arrogance and stupidity. And it all runs downhill from the stooges we have elected to office. |
| Posted by: junkiron 2010-06-21 19:48 |
| #4 "THese ***** prefer to have the Gulf Coast beaches coated in Oil, while continuing to milk the Crisis for Political Gain..." > HMMMMM, HMMMMM, wehell, iff the OIL-ENERGY PERTS are wrong n their Maths + Models, etc. ONE OF THESE DAYS OR YARNS THE FUTURE OWG-NWO MAY WAKE UP TO FIND THAT THEIR NATIONS + WORLD SUDDENLY RAN LOW OR IS OUT OF VITAL OIL WHILE THEY ARGUED IN THE NAME OF "PERFECT/IDEALIST" PDENIABILITY + OWG GEOPOLITIX. "NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME BURNED", as the saying goes. On again, 2029-2036 COMET APOPHIS + GUAM-EARTH-VISIBLE LUNAR EXPLOSIONS > ITS NOT EVEN EOY 2010, let alone 2029-2036, + already the GOVT CRITTERCRATS + PERTS are telling us that FUTURE EARTH'S SPACE DEFENSE = BMD, EITHER AGZ ROGUE STATE(S) OR ASTEROIDS, ETC. MAY BE SERIOUSLY CRIMPED [non-existent?] DUE TO LACK OF $$$ BUDGETS. As per the GULH OIL GUSH, now comes LACK OF EFFEC SPACE DEFENSE becuz the future OWG-NWO no longer has the OIL-DERIVED ADVANCED MATERIALS TO BUILD THE LR SATELLITES, LR MISSLES, WARHEADS, + INFO MANAGEMNT SYSTEMS, ETC. FOR SAID SAME SPACE DEFENSE - it no longer has the Oil becuz the Pols preferred to ARGUE + POSTURE, DENY + VERIFY, WHITE-OUT + BLACK-OUT, + LET THE OIL GUSH OUT FOR MANY MONTHS, YEARS OR EVEN DECADES THAN TO STOP IT??? PERENNIAL PCORRECTNESS/DENIABILITY in Any Each + All Things can be a DANGEROUS, EVEN CATACLYSMIC OR CATASTROPHIC, THINGY. "SMART" POLITICS = "POLITICS-AS-USUAL" IS NOT ALWAYS GOOD/PROPER LEADERSHIP. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-06-21 19:29 |
| #3 An Alpha strike from a carrier air wing would make short work of this renegade drilling platform. No need for the SEAD element either, since BP has neglected to provide any air defense systems. Go NAVY! Beat DEEPWATER HORIZON! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2010-06-21 15:06 |
| #2 "seal that damn pipe, yesterday!" What a load of wishful thinking. The only people who will ever seal that damn pipe will come from the oil industry, engineering companies, with perhaps some help from the USCG & USN. Fine rhetoric seals no blow holes. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-06-21 14:30 |
| #1 What the author doesn't address is the danger presented to the republic as more and more 'crisis' become something the only branch of government that seems to function with some degree of competency is the military. When it becomes ultimately the last card played in these crisis, how long before a beleaguered population is so fed up with all the posturing self serving pols and nattering media clowns that they demand rule by the competent. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-06-21 11:12 |