By any measure, drilling for oil and gas offshore is one of America's most dangerous professions. The risks are unavoidable: workers are on shift for an average of 12-hours a day dealing with highly combustible materials on a platform where cranes swing heavy equipment constantly overhead. All of this isolated hundreds of miles off coast. With seven to 14-days on the rig at a time, it can be a lonely experience. If something goes wrong, the Coast Guard responds, though even in the best-case scenario, help is not close. In the meantime, the crew uses watertight life pods that can hold up to ten people and that lower down into the water in the event of an emergency. There they wait for help to arrive. Such conditions can lead to rare but catastrophic incidents like the explosion that occurred April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, some 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana, aboard Transocean's Deepwater Horizon oil rig. One-hundred fifteen people made it to safety. Eleven workers who are unaccounted for are presumed dead.
April 27, 2010
Just How Dangerous Are Oil Rigs, Anyway?
From Time Magizine:
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