The fourth-largest corporation in the world drilled a well beneath a mile of water in the Gulf of Mexico. Operating at the frontier of knowledge in conditions more challenging than even deep space, this well was inherently dangerous. There were a series of judgments, operations and technological shortcomings running from the planning and design of the well to the effort to seal it that set the stage for disaster. When the well blew out on the night of April 20, equipment designed to be the last line of defense against disaster failed to shut down the well.
Eleven men were killed that night and more than two hundred million gallons of crude oil gushed into the ocean during the three months it took for the oil company, formerly known as British Petroleum, to cap the well. More than six hundred miles of coastline were oiled and a slick the size of South Carolina covered the fertile Gulf. Ocean, coastal and wetlands habitat and birds, fish, marine mammals, sea turtles and other animals and plants were damaged or destroyed. Thirty-seven percent of American waters in the Gulf were closed to fishing; thousands of watermen and others were thrown out of work; and the future of a complex and vital region was cast into uncertainty.
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