"From Day One."

Editor,

Janet Napolitano kept repeating on the Sunday talk shows the weekend following the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon that the federal government responded to crisis "from Day One."

"From Day One. From Day One." Again and again. But her department did not respond from "Day One."

Containment booms stockpiled on the Gulf Coast for months if not years in advance of a potential spill do not count as "responding from Day One." The booms were already there. And one Coast Guard ship monitoring developments is not blah blah blah.

Responding from Day One would have been to understand that the drilling rig blew up because the well blew out. The blowout preventer (BOP) obviously had failed, and anyone with a computer in the DHS could have ascertained immediately that the rig was exempted from having to install that $500,000 doo-hickey that civilized countries require on rigs that drill for oil off their shores.

The correct response would have been to throw every available ship, containment boom, and skimmer at the site of the explosion as soon after that explosion occurred as was humanly possible. Then the spill might have had a chance to have been contained.

Now the oil slick that gusher is creating is enormous and growing larger by the hour.

re: "Sex & Drugs & the Spill" (5/10/2010)