[My Favorite Headache]

Platforms destroyed along with pipelines...* repeated myself above.

[Aria]

Oh oh...

[Chunga]

Good news for The Associated Press and the rest of the BrainDeadMedia.

[GOP Poet]

Can’t get the video. Is this because of hurricane?

[glorgau]

Bushes fault.

[Keith in Iowa]

Can we hold off on thinking the worst has happened til we find out what has really happened?

Sure there’s going to be damage - but how much, and how it will ultimately impact supply is still an unknown.

But meanwhile, the media will sensationalize the crap out of what little they do know, until they find out they didn’t need to get so excited...

[BossLady]

Local Houston station online just explained that early assessment does not look good for pipelines. Also, rescue workers not getting the FEMA help with water and food....local congressperson livid that busses with supplies are sitting around. There are also some areas that no one has been able to get into yet. Dire situation for some.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/livenow?id=6384042

[CrappieLuck]

Relax

if “drilling for more oil will only help by a few cents”, then dropping a few rigs shouldn’t hurt either...right?

[Congressman Billybob]

How MANY might be destroyed? There are about 3,000 platforms in the Gulf. We know that two are loose and drifting. If another 3 or 4 are damaged like this, that's no big deal.

Only if 50 to 75 have serious damage, and many others have slight damage, is this bad news given the size of hurricane Ike. (It was the size of Texas.) If the damage is relatively slight, this is GOOD news, not BAD news.

But then, the AP was never very good at providing the context of the stories it was allegedly reporting.

Congressman Billybob

Tenth in the ten-part series, "The Owner's Manual (Part 10) -- The Remaining Amendments"

Latest article, "I, Obama"

[lainie]

KHOU said yesterday that at least two drilling platforms were free-floating in the gulf, according to federal sources.

[Obadiah]

Okay, so far with all the hype gas has gone up 40 cents in our area just this past week!

[rrrod]

Im sure this is waaaaaaay over blown. Damaged a little maybe...destroyed no.

[GWMcClintock]

Why do I have the feeling that this is more fear-mongering reporting vis a vis Geraldo? I’m not sure I’d believe this from AP, where “Chicken Little” is the editor in chief.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

And how many hurricanes do ANWR and the oil shale regions have every year?

[RadioCirca1970]

Repeat after me:

The Media Lies
People Die

[DakotaRed]

Gee. Someone would think a Hurricane just went through there.

[cricket]

The Left is beside themselves.. .as we speak; they are main-lining the bad news into Obama 'was/is/always will be' right; when it comes to America's energy policies.

See, see, see. . .we 'gotcha'. . .they think.

[count-your-change]

Too bad we don’t have any pictures of polar bears covered in crude oil. Or maybe a few forlorn critters riding floating oil rig debris.

[shield]

I have my doubts on this report. I’ll go with the earlier reports. This is AP...nuff said

[Phsstpok]

I have been searching for any source for this (nothing on AP or Google news) and finally remembered Pajama's Media Weather Nerd blog (great source, btw) recommending the Houston Chronicle's staff blog as a good source on Ike news  I found this:

Some offshore platforms lost to Ike

At least 10 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico have been destroyed by Hurricane Ike, the Minerals Management Service said today.

Spokeswoman Eileen Angelico could not reveal which facilities were lost, but said agency officials do not expect the major producing platforms in the Gulf to be among those destroyed.

Agency officials, conducting flyovers of the Gulf late Saturday and today, identified at least 10 facilities that had been destroyed, but Angelico warned that was not a firm number.

``This is preliminary,'' Angelico said. ``The number may change. We expect to see more damage than we saw in Gustav.''
--David Ivanovich

Sounds pretty minor in the overall scheme of things.  I agree with those that say this story is likely 90% AP hysterical hype.  This strikes me as being straight out of Michael Crichton's State Of Fear.