Did you see the environmental scientist on FOX a few minutes ago? He gave a pretty encouraging assessment of the damage so far.
He pointed out that the maps we keep seeing of the spill are just models but the reality is that it isn’t a solid mass of oil. He also said that the weather is helping to disperse the oil into the water column where bacteria breaks it down. Most important he said that the potential of catastrophe is there but we haven’t reached that point yet.
Personally I think there’s a great deal of hype coming from both left and right. The left is hyping it as a means of beating up on the oil industry and the right is hyping it as a means of beating up on Obozo.
The title of the thread is hype. Oil rigs do suffer the rare blow-out and then fire. That’s is apparently what happened on this particular rig, a gas blowout, then a massive fire when the escaped gas ignited ... and even static electricity can ignite the gas.
You hit the ball out of the park with that statement.
Oilfield and accident just seem to go together in the same sentence.