News Articles
Paul Flemming: Fearless reporting from the oil disaster
Tallahassee Democrat - May 6, 2010
The U.S. Coast Guard has nicer planes than the Florida Air National Guard.
That's but one tidbit still in the notebook from a week that saw the end of the regular legislative session and an immediate shift of focus to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Here are some scattershot loose ends.
Tuesday morning, Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum, CFO Alex Sink, two state senators, one state representative, the Florida National Guard adjutant general, and various agency heads, staff and media members got on a Florida guard C-130 in Tallahassee. The entourage first went to Pensacola and the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center. A Gulf flyover followed before landing in Mobile for briefings at the Unified Command Center, where spill-response coordination for Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle is taking place.
State Sen. Charlie Dean, an Inverness Republican, was advised to take off his cowboy hat, lest the prop wash blow it away.
The FNG's C-130 offered a fine flight. There were no in-flight safety instructions and no fasten-your-seat-belt signs, but there were exposed mechanical works and open access to the cockpit. The nylon-web jump seats were more comfortable than commercial airline seating, and the legroom was great. The complimentary ear plugs were a nice touch.
I have an irrational fear of heights. One thing with irrational fears is it's hard to figure out what's going to trigger it.
Opening up the rear gate of an in-flight plane cruising hundreds of feet over the Gulf of Mexico while I stood, untethered, 15 feet away didn't bother me a bit. Riding up to the eighth floor of my hotel in Mobile in a glass elevator had me nervously pressing myself up against the wall.
The U.S. Coast Guard's C-144 Ocean Sentry was a sweeter ride for a Thursday flyover of the Deepwater Horizon site. It was smaller, more tricked out and a bit quieter. When its gate swung open over the Deepwater Horizon site, I was just as unfazed.
State Rep. Greg Evers, a Baker Republican, was more surprised to see me than I was him at the Mobile air strip where the Coast Guard flight originated. He snapped photos, shot video, passed out business cards to Coast Guard Capt. Steve Poulin and U.S. Navy photographers and asked questions about the response.
Philip Wieczynski is chief of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Emergency Response. His bureau responds to hazardous-material spills, among many other things. It's worth noting that it's required in Florida to report to Wieczynski's bureau petroleum-based spills "involving state waterways (any amount)" and on-land spills of 25 gallons or more.
Deepwater Horizon is gushing more than 200,000 gallons a day.
In Mobile, Wieczynski is the state's on-site coordinator. He's the top liaison in Alabama. There were 33 Florida agency staff in Mobile in various capacities among the more than 350 here from Alabama, Mississippi, Washington, D.C. and — these are BP folks — around the globe.
Poulin is the sector commander for Mobile. He's running the Unified Command here, a combination of federal and state agencies, along with "responsible party" BP. He was the one Crist asked for an answer about Escambia County's then still-pending request for approval of a plan to set booms across the passes entering Escambia Bay.
Poulin has a vested interest in the success of the plan. He lives in Pace, in Santa Rosa County, at the northern end of the bay.
The Unified Command is thick with BP officials. The media handlers are from BP. The various response sections all include BP staff. The Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center, where the Unified Command has taken residence, is connected by a skywalk to The Battle House Renaissance Hotel. Its bar is nightly filled with BP types sporting German, British, French, Australian and good-old American accents.
I recommend the Seaman's Lounge, around the corner and down a block. No one from BP was in there Tuesday night, and the Budweiser was a buck-fifty a bottle.
One last notebook item you won't get just anywhere: Gov. Charlie Crist's pants on Tuesday? Levi's 550s, W 34 L 32.
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