Carl Safina

A Sea in Flames by Carl Safina

Preface: Know Before You Go

Crucial mistakes, disastrous consequences, the weakness of power, unpreparedness and overreaction, the quiet dignity of everyday heroes. The 2010 Gulf of Mexico blowout brought more than oil to the surface.

This is a not just a record of a technological event. It’s also a chronicle of a season of anguish and panic, deep uncertainties, and the emotional topography of the blowout. It is the record of an event unfolding, a synthesis of personal experience, news, rumors, and the rapidly shifting perspectives about how bad things were—and how bad they were not.

There are roughly three parts to this event, and to this book: what caused this particular well to blow out; the varied technological, biological, and emotional responses during the months the oil was flowing; and a little more calmness, clarity, and insight after the flow of oil was stopped.

I’ve chosen to convey my impressions as they occurred over a season that was intense, chaotic, and seemingly interminable. In the turmoil, it was easy to form the wrong impressions and follow blind alleys. And I did.

Over the months, information and understanding improved significantly. Later, after the flow of oil was stopped, we calmed down, and those with cooler heads began to see more clearly.

This book is not a definitive treatise; it’s a portrait. The story will continue unfurling. Some aspects, we’ll never fully understand.

In trying my best to get it right, I am sure that: nearly all of what I’ve written is reasonable, most of it is true, and some of it is wrong. It’s not less than that, and not more.

It’s easy to criticize people in charge. It’s much harder to be the person in charge. I was angry at the Coast Guard for weeks, until I began to realize that its ability to respond was largely dictated by the laws that confined it. If officials such as Admiral Thad Allen rankled me at times, it may say more about me than about them. But it remains part of the portrait of this whole event.

In truth, such people deserve not just our admiration but also a little slack. During the blowout, perfection wasn’t an available option. I’ve left my first impressions in place to show how my perceptions changed as my initial rage—and I felt plenty of rage—subsided. Admiral Allen, as the most visible federal official and the man in charge, gets the brunt of my exasperation. But he never fully deserved it. I could not have done the job he did.

Admiral Allen, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, and others in our government gave us their very best under months of intense pressure, heavy responsibility, and public scrutiny. They were doing a nearly impossible job on behalf of us all. I didn’t always appreciate that right away, especially during my summer travels through the Gulf region, when I was often both angry and grief-stricken. In truth, they deserve our thanks and praise.

But it’s not all about them. It’s about us. We all contributed to this event, and we’re all trapped in the same situation. We all use too much gasoline and oil, because we’ve painted ourselves into a corner when it comes to energy.

For clarity I have lightly cleaned up or slightly condensed some of the verbatim testimony and quotes. Verbal exchanges during the hours leading up to and including the initial disaster on the drilling rig derive from recollections of those who endured that trauma. Because they are subject to the fog of crisis, some testimony conflicts; we may never know how to resolve those contradictory recollections.

In the end, this is a chronicle of a summer of pain—and hope. Hope that the full potential of this catastrophe would not materialize, hope that the harm done would heal faster than feared, and hope that even if we didn’t suff er the absolute worst, we’d still learn the big lesson here.

We may have gotten two out of three. That’s not good enough. Because: there’ll be a next time.

Carl Safina

Stony Brook, New York

November 2010