Tropical Storm Alex Threatens BP Gulf Oil Cleanup
A tropical storm (named Alex) may disrupt the cleanup operation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Members of the U.S. Coast guard are moving individuals around to chase the oil as it moves on with the storm. Alex has been moving through the US the last couple of days, and has ended up near the Gulf of Mexico, even though forecasters predicted that the storm was, in fact, going away from the area of the spill.
Currently there has been minimal disruption to the clean up itself, even though ships will have to be moved from the area if the storm does become more central to the leak itself. Some crews have been moved to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi as the path of oil has changed due to the high-wind speed.
Admiral Thad Allen has said that the speed and direction of Alex does not indicate that there should be any intermittent problems, but it appears that there will be a minor form of disruption as a third vessel may find it hard to be brought into the area during a storm time. This third vessel was going to be there to help out the other two, all three of these ships are carrying out siphoning of oil from the sea bed. It is believed that around 24,000 barrels are currently being collected, but the third ship would allow this to increase to over 50,000; however, these plans have been moved back to early next month due to the weather conditions.
