Saturday, April 17, 2010

Was at the Georgetown Harbor near Thompson’s Boat House watching Ali’s Varsity Crew Boat compete in a regatta. Nice Spring day on the Potomac. Chris and I were with the usual parents group including our good friends Liz and David Hayes whose daughter Molly is Ali’s “best” friend and boat-mate. Both will attend Stanford in September. There had been a terrible explosion in an off shore deep-water oil rig a few days ago with no apparent oil leak despite the fact that the platform was destroyed, 11 people died and scores injured. It was the British Petroleum (BP) Horizon Deepwater well. David Hayes is the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior. In the middle of the regatta, David got a phone call from the White House communications people. Apparently, there is considerable amount of oil leaking from a broken pipe line. They were saying that the leak is minimal and David was caught in the middle in having spoken to the press and saying that this was serious. The White House communications people were concerned that he said that we have a bigger problem than exists. They were apparently giving him some “shit” about this. David, who recently (last year) had a cardiac arrest associated with a myocardial infarction on a golf course, looked shook and distracted. I encouraged him to not worry about what the communications people think. I know something about the WH trying to control the “message”. Little did either of us know that over the subsequent months would unfold the worst oil spill in history and the worst environmental disaster in the history of the USA.