Pictures: Hurricane Alex Pushes Oil on "Cleaned" Beaches

Oil-Soaked Booms

Photograph by Chris Combs, National Geographic

Absorbent booms soggy with chocolate-brown oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill lie on the ground in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, Wednesday.

The Grand Isle Port Commission's Keller supervises some of the efforts to clean oiled beaches on nearby Elmer's Island National Wildlife Refuge, off Grand Isle, where beach access has been cut off by high waters from Hurricane Alex.

"We can't stop it. There's no skimming, booms aren't working in the heavy surf. It's a mess right now."

And "the largest [oil] plumes we've seen yet are offshore."

Published June 30, 2010

Swabbing the Decks

Photograph by Chris Combs, National Geographic

Adolph Delatte, aka "T-Pod," cleans oil off his vessel with absorbent wipes on Wednesday.

The 40 shrimping boats employed by BP as oil skimmers in Lafourche Parish were the only Louisiana vessels to go skimming Tuesday night in the 3- to 4-foot (0.9- to 1.2-meter) swells whipped up by Hurricane Alex, said Mark Bisnette, chief marine-science technician for the U.S. Coast Guard.

"These guys here are warriors," Bisnette said as the sun briefly broke through the clouds over Bobby Lynn's Marina, the launching point for the makeshift oil skimmers. Despite Hurricane Alex, the boats had collected about 500 bags of oil-absorbing material—a surprisingly high number, Bisnette said.

For Scott Perrin, a local commercial fisher and team leader on one of the vessels, Tuesday's trip "wasn't bumpier than an ordinary day of shrimping."

Published June 30, 2010

Oiled Rigging

Photograph by Chris Combs, National Geographic

Oil-stained booms and rigging hand from the L M, a vessel owned by local Adolph Delatte, as the ship sits in Bobby Lynn's Marina near Port Fouchon, Louisiana, Wednesday.

The "biggest fear" is what will happen if a future hurricane makes a beeline for Louisiana, said Brennan Matherne, public information officer for Lafourche Parish.

"We see what a hurricane passing 800 miles [about 1,280 kilometers] away from us [does]," Matherne said on the wind-whipped Fourchon Beach, usually full of fishers and campers this time of year.

"Imagine, if it gets any closer than that, what effect it's going to have," he said.

Published June 30, 2010

Oil Barricades

Photograph by Chris Combs, National Geographic

Rough waves pound concrete barricades coated with oil along a beach in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, Wednesday.

The current situation suggests indirect effects of a passing storm like Hurricane Alex can be devastating, said the Grand Isle Port Commission's Keller.

Lafourche Parish's Matherne added: "This was a wake-up call to the Coast Guard and all the people who aren't from this area to make them understand what kind of dynamic we're dealing with when we have a storm here."

Published June 30, 2010