More on the Gulf of Mexico Oil situation...

I spoke again with my buddy Hank Allen, meteorologist at WGNO-TV in New Orleans, about the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Here are some of his thoughts today....

I asked him first about the seemingly conflicting reports about the exact location of the oil, and you can read where his comments went from there...

"The way I understand it there has been oil that has been spotted along the coast of some of the barrier islands. Now in terms of a mainland "landfall" that hasn't happened yet and may not til tonight or tomorrow. Course the issue with the continual onshore flow is the seas are getting bigger . . . 5-7 feet by tomorrow so I'm not sure if the booms are going to work. Some of this stuff is going to go right over the top. You also have the situation where Sunday we could get some severe weather . . . so obviously that means rough seas and will probably prohibit any additional cleanup efforts Sunday and maybe even into Monday as it looks like the front may hang up and give us coastal storms on Monday.

"A friend asked me this morning if this is worse than the Exxon Valdez. My answer would be yes. And possibly by a lot. With that situation you had a known quantity of oil and it got contained. Here you have a limitless amount of oil leaking into the gulf until this thing gets plugged. How much comes out will be the question. The other factor here is the number of species that live along the coast in this area. Anything from otters, mink, dolphins, whales, turtles, birds to fish. Also this is where most of the country's seafood comes from in terms of oysters and shrimp. Just a tremendous impact on many different areas of life in this area. Just think the worst natural and ecological disasters this country has ever seen both happened right here."