I sit here in an archetypal Southern thunderstorm, a grouchy old beast who visits regularly in the mid afternoon when the heat index peaks and sooty clouds loom in from the northeast. The period before the rains fall is electric, a blessed blanket of shade from the momentarily-vanquished sun, when people run out to their cars to retrieve some item or savor a quick smoke before retreating inside for the rest of the work day.
The storm makes itself known with waves of wall-rattling thunder, and sheets of rain whipping through the live oaks onto the poorly-drained streets in the city’s Riverside neighborhood. Lightening may claim one or two trees or cast a couple blocks into darkness with a well-placed kiss. Water fills the street as the storm passes, drifting off around quitting time. Tomorrow it will repeat the process. The hotter it gets, the harder the storms. Woe to whomever gets caught in it.
NOAA predicts an active hurricane season this year. We are 21 days in and already there have been 3 named storms along the Pacific coast.
What concerns me most is the Gulf of Mexico, and the operations going on there. Though a storm would have no effect on the well head, it would certainly affect surface ships and the rigs digging the relief wells. Worse still would be its impact on the oil slick, which at this time, is up to interpretation. We really don’t know whether it would disperse the oil and push it away from shore, or push it over the booms with the storm surge and turn an already miserable nightmare into a far more miserable nightmare.
What happens if benzene and other toxins condense in significant amounts within storms? Could they shower the northeast with poison? What happens if oil is pushed into freshwater features?
The progress of drilling engineers and relief crews so far has been helped along by relatively good weather. However, we all know not to rely on it. Down here, hurricanes take on human qualities and become characters in local history. People speak of Andrew, Ivan, and Katrina as if they were sentient beings. They describe their temperaments, the wrath they inflicted or the mercies they showed, and speak of every new entity as a potential visitor. As with any important visitor, welcomed or otherwise, there are rituals to perform and protocol to follow. Everyone’s routine stops as they must meet the newcomer. To ignore it is to invite a poor reception.
The good thing is that the visitor is always just passing through. Within a few days, it is gone, and we rearrange our lives to whatever new conditions it bestowed upon us. That’s far more that can be said than with our tragedy in the Gulf.
They tell us the relief wells should be done by August. They don’t tell us about how enormously complex an operation it is to bisect a tiny patch of space 3 miles underground when the integrity of the surrounding structure and sea floor is still very much in question. August is simply another point in a plan that has yielded very little.
I have far more faith in weather patterns and in my old friends than I do in any concept of man. Of course I hope for the best, and applaud the people working on the relief rigs, who I view as heroes in an episode largely dominated by ugly and useless characters. I know that in addition to working against geology and weather, they struggle against the most dangerous factor: time.
