Deepwater Horizon Response ICP Galveston Captain Marcus Woodring Sector Houston-Galveston
Prelude April 20 th, 2010 The Transocean Rig, Deepwater Horizon, suffered a major marine casualty and fire. The rig sank a few days later, severing the riser connection, releasing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. There were 11 casualties as a result of the fire/explosion. BP took on the role of the responsible party for the oil spill response efforts. The USCG and MMS are co-chairing an ongoing investigation into the major marine casualty.
Prelude
Prelude
Prelude
Prelude
Other Commands The first Incident Command Post (ICP) was established in Houma, as the initial event occurred within the Morgan City COTP Zone. This ICP eventually became responsible for the entire State of Louisiana. Shortly afterwards, an ICP was stood-up in Mobile, to cover the States of Mississippi, Alabama, and the panhandle of Florida. ICP Florida was established for the State (other than the panhandle).
Other Commands Because of the need to broker the resources available between multiple ICPs, i.e. boom and skimmers, a Unified Area Command (UAC) was established in Robert, and eventually relocated to NOLA. After the declaration of this event as a Spill of National Significance (SONS), a National Incident Command (NIC) was also established. At BP Headquarters in Westlake, the efforts to control the source was named ICP Houston.
Structure National Incident Command (NIC) Unified Area Command (UAC) ICP Houma ICP Mobile ICP Houston ICP Galveston ICP Florida
Key Role Players NIC Admiral Thad Allen UAC (FOSC) Admiral Mary Landry Admiral Jim Watson Admiral Paul Zukunft The NIC serves as the strategic liaison between the White House and incident. The UAC unified the effort of the ICPs and served as the FOSC for the response. Each Federal ICP Commander was in turn designated as an FOSCR.
Key Role Players ICP Houma (FOSCR) Captain Ed Stanton Captain Roger Leferriere Captain Scott Paradis ICP Mobile (FOSCR) Captain Steve Poulin ICP Florida (FOSCR) Captain Drew Pearson ICP Galveston (FOSCR) Captain Marcus Woodring ICP Houston (source control) Various USCG Officers
Pre-ICP Galveston With the ongoing spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the USCG and TGLO conducted outreach with many partners and stakeholders. Plans were reviewed, preparations made, and partnership alignments double checked. The week following Fourth of July weekend, several tar balls and oiled vegetation washed ashore on Galveston Island, Bolivar Peninsula, and at McFaddin Beach. As in all cases of tar balls, samples were sent for analysis, and came back as a positive match to the DWH event.
Pre-ICP Galveston
Pre-ICP Galveston
Pre-ICP Galveston Once the positive matches were confirmed, a command post was stood up, and a press conference was held. The newspaper headlines read All Five Gulf States Impacted.
Texas Timeline 20April Fire and explosion on Deepwater Horizon rig 05July First impact to Texas beaches 10July ICP Galveston stood up in Galveston 15July Well capped 15July Last impact to Texas beaches 27July ICP Galveston relocated to MSU TXC 03August Static kill completed 05August Well cemented from top 14September ICP Galveston stood down 18September Well cemented from bottom
ICP Galveston With positive matches in Texas, ICP Galveston was officially stood up as part of the UAC on July 10 th, 2010. The ICP had the Texas General Land Office (TGLO), BP, and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). The ICP role was to keep the beaches clean and open, outreach, and represent the State of Texas to the UAC and NIC. Over the course of the next several weeks, we responded to many reports of tar balls and oiled vegetation washing ashore. Each was sampled to determine the source.
ICP Galveston
ICP Galveston Galveston Island assessment teams
ICP Galveston Galveston Island assessment teams
ICP Galveston
ICP Galveston Outreach and media interaction: County Judges Mayor of Galveston Governor s Office Homeowners Associations Chamber of Commerce Interest Groups (i.e. Galveston Bay Council) Emergency Managers Congressional Delegations The general public Media at all levels Fishermen Economic Alliances
ICP Galveston By the numbers: ICP Galv 121 people at peak UAC Over 47,000 people at peak ICP Galv 118 cubic yards recovered UAC 12.6 million feet of boom deployed ICP Galv No boom, one skimmer UAC 77 offshore skimmers (>800 total) ICP Galv No oiled wildlife UAC Est 3 to 5.2 million bbls spilled ICP Galv Cost was $1.2 million (26Aug) UAC - $519 million in FPN costs (26Aug)
Random Facts As of July 30th: 341,000 calls received at call center 38,600 e-mails received, 57% of those were offering advice $346 million obligated by OSLTF 39,611 Facebook followers Over 135 million website hits ~10K print stories and 450 broadcasts a day Over 5,000 vessels involved Over 3,700 ideas evaluated, 145 forwarded for consideration, at peak over 800 a week were received, down to approx 100 a week now
Relativity EAGLE OTOME EXXON VALDEZ DEEPWATER HORIZON = 10K BBLS
Where did the oil go?? ~1.3M Barrels
Lessons Learned in Texas 1) Strength - Outreach before impact was critical to success once impacts occurred 2) Opportunity - Huge national command structure restricted the strength of NIMS i.e. the ability of a local IC/FOSC to make all decisions without permission 3) Strength - TGLO s partnership and abilities in Texas 4) Opportunity Lots of overhead required to be an ICP, more ICP effort expended internally than in response operations
Best Response Model O r g a n i z a t i o n Health and Safety The Environment Economic Impact Public Communications Stakeholder Involvement GOAL Serve the American Public
Conclusion Any questions?