Hurricane, Plus Oil Spill: It’s Never Happened, and We Sure Don’t Want It To
When a hurricane makes landfall, the winds push the ocean onto the land — this is called a storm surge. The height of the surge on land is dependent on several factors.
The strength of the wind and the rate of forward motion of the storm are critical in determining how much water is forced up onto the land. The diameter of the hurricane will also determine how much water is blown inland — the wider the storm, the more water is pushed in, and over a greater area. If the water is shallow offshore, the surge will be deeper on land. Naturally, the elevation of the land is important as well.
The water off the Gulf Coast is shallow, and the elevation inland is only a few feet. This area is prime territory for devastating and deeply penetrating storm surges.
Should a major hurricane push the spill towards the Gulf Coast, there will be nothing that can be done to stop it. No amount of planning or engineering will help. No number of visits to the Gulf by the president or any other official will stop the inevitable. The storm surge will drive the water, and the oil, miles inland. Everything in its path will be coated in a greasy bath of crude.
Even the wind will have oil in it.
In New England, I have witnessed hurricanes and tropical storms that have blown salt spray many miles inland from the coast. The leaves of inland trees eventually turn brown and fall off. In the case of the Gulf, it will be oil spraying the trees, buildings, and anything else in the way. How far inland this oily mess will blow is anyone’s guess, but it could be unprecedented in its economic and environmental damage.
The recovery period after a hurricane can take years. It was 10 years until some communities fully recovered from Hurricane Andrew in South Florida, though some communities never recovered at all. The New Orleans area is still putting itself back together after Katrina in 2005. The recovery period after an “oilicane” will be hard to forecast, but the human and natural loss could be historic.
http://www.xkcd.org/748/
Others predict that a hurricane would actually help, by accelerating the evaporation of the oil. Nobody really knows what would happen at this point; it’s all just conjecture. However, there are undoubtedly scientists at NOAA and EPA working on accurate predictions of the effects of just such a hurricane. Don’t forget the dispersants, either. They’ll likely be a factor.
If NOAA’s ‘predictions’ on a hurricane’s effect on spreading the oil are anything like their predictions on the ‘climate change’ fraud, nothing they say can be trusted.
come on Hurricane let BO see the true Power of GOD as he cries for help to allah and mohammed. They scorn GOD remove Him from everywhere so GOD let the winds blow in JESUS name I pray. BO needs to see the Power of GOD and learn fear and trembling. Fire away GOD as America scorns YOU I Praise and Glorify YOU.
Based on this reasoning, its dog’s fault the oil spilled in the first place.
george carlin once did a bit about america going down the tubes and if you listen closely, you can hear the flushing sound it makes.
what sound does an oilcane make?
LOL. The biggest story in US history is in the known facts of the “gulf oil fiasco”;
The analogy would be like Madoff was a pickpocket compared to the story that is right in front of your face in the known facts, but you can not see!
1986: “downfall, by popular uprising, of the government operating out of Moscow”; same reaction from PJ today as I got from congress then when I handed congress that: report/conclusion/analysis.
I offer it to PJ; but no, PJ does not want the story; PJ prints story about hurricanes and oil! LOL
Having seen the quality of your “analysis” I’m not surprised that your “report” was ignored.
MTFake: Hi Oil industry Rep whose motto: Protect oil industry at all cost…
So anyone who disagrees with you is an industry rep?
I thought only liberals were immune to reality, but apparently I was wrong. Contact Brian N. This makes twice in one week.
MTFake, not anyone, butt you are certainly an oil industry rep; and that is OK, I am happy to hear you desperately defend, protect, raise invalid objections and canards for: Big Oil.
You claim to disagree even though no one has figured out the story; LOL
Of course you do not want anyone to listen; you know I know and you know you simply right rubbish to defend “oil”: MTFake
Your evidence that I am an oil industry rep is that I disagree with your long and well discredited opinion.
That’s alright. I’m used to conspiracy nuts going apoplectic whenever someone challenges their favorite fantasy.
You of course present the classic profile.
The only thing I’m trying to protect is reality. A place you haven’t visited in years.
Remember, dose makes the poison.
While it may be possible to measure the amount of oil in water spray miles inland, the odds of the concentration being high enough to cause any damage is minute.
Remember another thing, the smaller the droplet, the faster it evaporates. By reducing the big blobs, to a fine spray, most of it will evaporate.
While it is true that warmer waters give a hurricane more potential, what determines how big a hurricane finally gets depends much more on the condition in the upper atmosphere? Is it relatively cold and dry, or warm and wet. Also, how fast are the winds blowing. Fast winds shear the tops off of hurricanes and prevent them from growing.
I’ve read other reports where experts believe that a hurricane could help the clean up effort, by breaking up and disbursing the oil.
A very good point. This article is not very logical. We are all exposed to petrochemicals every time we gas up our cars, and every stream in the country has some level of contamination in it from idiots changing their oil and dumping the old stuff down a nearby storm drain.
And where in hell are the skimmers?
Three days after the spill, the Dutch, who are experts at cleaning up oil spills, offered (for free) their highly sophisticated skimmers through diplomatic channels, so there is no denying that DC got the offer. If that offer had been accepted, they could have removed 80,000 tons of oil and sludge every day. That means that over 7.5 million tons could have been removed already.
First they used the antique Jones Act to justify turning down the Dutch (Bush quickly granted a blanket waiver after Katrina). Then, federal environmental law makes it illegal to discharge water that is less than 99.7+++ percent pure. The Dutch skimmers remove only 90% of the oil, and discharge the remaining 10% back into the ocean, all in ultrafine particulates that more easily evaporate, so that they can process more sludge. This is a perfect example of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the pretty damn good. Better to leave all the oil in the water than only 10% of it, apparently.
That’s why there is all this crap hitting the beaches now, because Obama’s incompetent, petulant administration refuses to actually do the things that would mitigate this disaster. Not only is this too good a crisis to waste, apparently they must feel that if they help it get worse, politically for them it will only make things better.
The skimmer “A-Whale” is docked in an American port waiting permission to start skimming. It’s a converted oil tanker and can recover as much as 500,000 gallons a day.
This ship works by sucking in contaminated water at the bow, seperating the oil from it, and discharging the water. The problem is that even though the discharged water is a million times cleaner than the water taken in, it isn’t clean enough according to the EPA, which has rules limiting discharged water to 15ppm of oil.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this ship will greatly reduce the amount of oil floating in the gulf, but since it isn’t perfect enough, the EPA won’t allow it to be used.
It is situations like this that Presidential waivers were designed for. Yet Obama has yet to issue his first during the nearly three months of this crisis.
If what you say is true, I would have to agree with your point. 500,000 gallons a day seems highly unlikely, but hell, if it took out 100,000 gallons, a waiver would seem more than justified.
Can anyone tell me if we are yet at the point where we are removing more oil each day than is coming out…or not?
And finally, because Art Horn (with whom I have often differed) speculates that a hurricane which would bring millions of gallons of the oil inland in a hurry would be a very bad thing, hardly makes him some sort of traitor. Yeah, it MIGHT actually help things, but it also might turn thousands of square miles inland into a toxic wasteland for some substantial period of time. It’s hard to look forward to THAT.
As I stated above, the dose makes the poison. If the small amount of oil that is reaching shore were to be spread over hundreds of thousands of square miles, you would be hard pressed to find any evidence that it was actually there. Hardly the toxic wastelands that haunt your imagination.
Here’s a story about the “A Whale”. It even has a picture of the vessel.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/30/free-enterprise-crashes-the-oil-cleanup-party/#more-37590
In this article it mentions that the vessel is able to process 500,000 barrels of contaminated water a day.
A sea of toxic assets threatens financial institutions, so this administration papers them over with fiat money… meanwhile, those toxic assets are still out there bubbling.
An underwater gusher of oil threatens to wipe out the Gulf ecology and economy, so this administration assigns a cadre of oil scoopers on the beach to shovel it up after the fact… meanwhile, that oil is still out there bubbling.
A rabid Islamic regime in Iran threatens to build a nuclear bomb and use it on Israel (or anyone else that gets in its way), so this administration slaps some ineffective sanctions on Iran…. meanwhile, the mad mullahs are still out there building their bomb.
Now, some might say my comparisons are overdrawn, but I would conclude that Obama and his merry band are playing games of three-card monte with any problem that comes their way… you know, look over here, not over there, and presto !!! There’s no problem here, folks !!!
OMG OMG OMG, its new, its not understood, it must be evil!!! The reality is that a Hurricane has a far greater than 50% likelihood to lower the total environmental impact of the oil in the water. The only difference on a negative is that it will spread the oil to places it otherwise could never have gotten to. But hey, nice scare mongering article, who cares if you actually had to put total blinders on to write it, right?
A few days ago, a poster tried to claim that a hurricane, by causing the fumes from the spill to spread, would create the world’s largest fuel/air bomb.
Yesterday another poster cited a link to some moron who tried to claim that the toxic fumes from the spill were going to force everyone who lived within 500 miles of the gulf to evacuate.
Do you not remember the 1979 Ixtoc I spill? It was a spill larger than the current one, in the Gulf of Mexico. It lasted through the entire 1979 hurricane season.
And somehow, we’re still here.
Interesting. Oil, being lighter than water (it floats) might be subject to sort of cold distillation with its more volitel compounds rising into the clouds where internal lightning could ignite them. A storm that brings floods, tornados and fire from the sky, that’ll make believers out of a lot of folks! I doubt if it will convince any liberals, they always remind me of Edward G. Robinson’s character in the Ten Commandmants, nothing Moses did was ever quite enough.
Before petroleum vapors in air can ignite, they need to be within a narrow range of concentrations. Too low, no boom. Too high, no boom. There isn’t enough oil in the gulf to get the atmosphere in a hurricane up to the critical concentration.
I meant Volatile, please forgive me, I’m from a broken home and a bigot.
A Saudi Arabian oil representative is seeing Mr Obama, and believes in Cap n’ Trade, considering this oil spill that produced 25% of USA’s oil, I suspect he
is after new business? What do your reckon.
Well if and when the hurricane hits the area, I hope there is no water spout?
Raining Cats, Dogs and oil eh?