Gulf coast status?

[shunt1]

Here is a link to the Florida SERT("State Emergency Response Team") map: http://map.floridadisaster.org. It is updated constantly with oil sightings and response data.

Thanks for that very usefull website, because even I have been wordering about the current status.

Because of the weather, we have not been able to get an aircraft on a photo mission for over a week now. Rather difficult to photograph the ocean, while flying through clounds in IFR conditions.

This weather related break has been usefull to me, since the crew has had the time to Fed-Ex a disk drive to me with raw camera data.

I was so disgusted with the quality of our images, that I walked out last week and had a hissy fit. I was furious!

I have spent the last week training the camera operators how to obtain decent multi-spectral imaging to locate the oil with. Sorry, but nice pictures of beaches does not cut it with me, since oil is actually rather difficult to measure. I needed (and demanded) scientific quality images for analysis. The infra-red channel has become rather important for locating the oil and these new camera operators were rather ignorant about that.

Nice to know that I can get discounts in Panama City. I may have to take you up on that offer.

We will do much better!

[EmergencyExit]

shunt1, thank you. I'm sure everyone on the coast appreciates a positive can do/will do attitude like that from someone involved in the process.

[shunt1]

Our company is located in Minnesota and we have had to hire new local (Gulf Coast) people to operate our two aircraft, camera hardware, and post-fligh data processing.

We even hired a computer science university professor for the processing of our images, along with fligh instructors with enough experience to pilot our twin-engine aircraft.

This has been a maximum effort project since the very first day.

Yesterday, we ordered a new computer with CUDA capability and it was delivered today. By Tuesday of next week, we will have another "super computer" with another 480 GPU processors online for image mapping.

Guys, if I could personally scoop up the oil on the beaches with a shovel, I would be doing exactly that.

[shunt1]

Let me tell you a little story that I learned on Monday:

Saturday, a tiny little town in Minnesota was hit with 'straight-line-winds" that destroyed many barns, grain silows and trees beyond count. That little town is where most of the people I work with live, to include my boss.


Chris explained what happened to him like this:

"Most of my farm looked like a war zone and almost every tree had been blown down. I got out with my chain-saw and was starting to clean things up. Without any warning, 20 people showed up and worked as a team to cut my trees and load them onto flat bed trailors. Thirty minutes later, every tree on my property had been loaded and hauled away."

Chris wondered how the land fill could handle this amount of rubbish and expected a long traffic backup.

To his surprize, everything was amazingly efficient. When a truck and trailor arrived, a "Bob Cat" shoved the items into the pit and the vehicle was able to depart within one minute. There were no traffic backups!

Three hours later, the entire community had been cleared of all damage and you would have a difficult time realizing that anything had happened.

THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD WORK!

No government was involved. Just friends and family getting together to fix a problem that needed their mutual help.

Monday, I was so damn proud of living in farm country!

[shunt1]

Our aircraft have been sent home and will return to Minnesota on Friday.

This is fantastic news!

[tgentry]

Shunt1,
That's a great story, and yes that is how communities are supposed to work.

Good news about the oil being stopped. At least now the cleanup crews will be gaining on it.

[thepartydog]

PNJ article about sailing related businesses, and the sailing community in the Pensacola beach area.
http://www.pnj.com/article/20100717/NEW ... -oil-spill

[shunt1]

Thanks "thepartydog" for that article about Pensicola.

"To be honest, it's not as bad as I thought it would be,'' Riddle said. "Fortunately, sailors are a savvy, spirited bunch. Generally, sailors are smart enough to look out the window and know it's perfectly safe to go out and enjoy sailing."

It was getting harder and harder for us to locate any major oil areas with our aircraft. Since the expected problem areas were located around Mobile and Pensicola, we relocated from Louisiana and moved our operation to Mobile.

What a mess, since we had to locate an new office with high-speed internet and coordinate all sorts of things for that move. Once we got situated in Mobile, things started to change and the focus was back to Louisiana. We ended up flying eight hour long photo recon missions, which was wearing everyone out.

By last week, we realized that we would be returning to Minnesota soon, since the oil was getting hard to find. Once BP had the new cap on the oil spill, they allowed us to go home.

We will continue monthly flights along the gulf coast beaches to monitor the progress of the cleanup efforts, but our primary mission is now completed.

Job well done!

[Mario G]

Thanks Shunt1

Its sad that things like this happen, but I'm happy to see things are getting better and hope we learned something.

My hats off to everyone that is helping.