BP preps for height of storm season

With oil cleanup workers in the Gulf and more than 19,000 responders to the oil spill stationed in coastal Louisiana during the heart of hurricane season, BP has announced its evacuation and reentry plan should a storm rear its ugly head.

Coast Guard Commander Kathleen Fast said BP has met with parish and state governments to develop a hurricane evacuation plan designed for responders to avoid getting in the way of parish evacuations.

“Weekly, we have met with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, and we’ve also met with all of the parishes regularly, to make sure we could de-conflict our evacuation and reconstitution efforts,” she said. “We want to be away of the concerns from each parish and make sure we don’t adversely impact the safe evacuation of the citizens in the state of Louisiana.”

Fast said BP anticipates beginning its evacuation process five days (120 hours) prior to hurricane landfall, but she understands that in some instances beginning that early may not be possible.

She said BP hopes to have non-essential personnel and equipment evacuated 66 hours prior to the storm.

When the evacuation order is issued by the incident command post in Houma 120 hours prior to landfall, vessels and equipment will begin to be demobilized immediately.

“We have to institute rapid and high volume decontamination of vessels that have oil on their hulls, as well as the equipment, then we begin moving that out of the way in a prioritized way,” said Fast.

She said certain equipment has been labeled critical and will be the first to be evacuated.

BP has signed an agreement with the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales to house evacuated equipment.

Certain equipment has already been moved to Gonzales, she noted.

“We’re at no illusion that every piece of equipment can be evacuated in that initial 24 hour period, so efforts will be made to pull back equipment at this point to centralize warehousing at the Lamar Dixon facility,” said Fast.

After equipment is taken care of, Fast said personnel evacuates next.

“All Louisiana residents will be released to secure their family and property, and then BP is releasing other non-essential personnel,” she explained. That process should be completed by 72 hours prior to hurricane landfall.

BP will also provide transportation for personnel if need be.

In addition, BP will release vessels by three days (72 hours) out with the strong hope that all decontamination procedures have been completed.

“The Coast Guard has made it clear that we will not have runaway barges damage the infrastructure of Louisiana,” said Fast. “We’ve provided significant information to the vessels involved in the response on how to evacuate and relocate for secure harbor successfully.”

BP will keep about 75 essential employees in Houma’s command center, and they will move out of their hotels in order to provide as much availability for citizens as possible, according to Fast.

Additionally, BP will provide each parish’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) with liaison officers, assessment officers, branch directors and transportation coordinators.

“We have other assessment teams that pull back to a safe haven,” said Fast. “But the parishes expressed concern about reentry, and the parishes said we would like some of your response personnel in the EOC with us.”

Upon reentry, Fast said air rapid assessment teams (RATs), shoreline cleanup assessment teams (SCATs), quick response forces (QRFs), and damage assessment and air operations teams will be the first ones allowed back in the Tri-parishes.