Gulf braces for storm, halt to oil containment

Federal officials Friday scrambled to get ready for the possibility that a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico could shut down containment operations at BP's leaking oil well for two weeks.

Together with BP, the company responsible for cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon spill, Coast Guard officials are preparing contingency plans that would suspend the oil-collection operation and delay relief-well drilling until the storm passes — which would allow even more oil to gush into the Gulf. Using upper-end federal estimates of the leak, 35 million gallons would gush out.

Adm. Thad Allen, the federal commander on the scene, said it would take about five days to disconnect the one ship that is directly tethered, through its oil-spill-containment system, to the broken well. Workers would also have to be evacuated. Those steps would be called for if sustained winds of 46 mph or greater were expected, he said.

"We're watching that tropical depression very closely right now," Allen said Friday.

If the area of disturbed weather does develop into a storm, it may happen around the time Vice President Joseph Biden visits the region, on Tuesday.

If winds reach gale force near the well, about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, they could drive wave swells 8 feet high, meaning skimmer ships couldn't operate and the containment ship couldn't stay connected. Allen said disconnecting the cap and pipes from the well before the storm and then reconnecting them afterward could leave the gusher unchecked for up to 14 days.

Five days is generally too far ahead for scientists to accurately forecast the path of a storm that's still forming, said Brian LaMarre, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"It's almost like a doctor trying to diagnose you with a cold, and you don't have it yet," LaMarre said.

An area of "disturbed weather is approaching near Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic," LaMarre said Friday afternoon, adding that a reconnaissance plane was on its way to see whether the system had formed a low-pressure center, an indication that it could gain strength.

This first potential storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season shows the precarious nature of the oil-containment effort. Not until mid-July, Allen said, will a free-standing system be ready to replace the improvised ship-mounted oil-collection system. A free-standing system would be less vulnerable to storms.

Right now, the drilling ship Discoverer Enterprise is connected to the containment cap on the well. The system controls about one-half of the oil gushing from the damaged well. Most of the rest escapes into the water.

A storm would also halt BP's drilling work on two relief wells intended to seal the stricken well permanently. One of the two made initial contact with the well-bore on Thursday, Allen said. "We wouldn't have to start again, we'd stop where we're at and re-initiate," he said of the plans for bad weather.

As of now, BP is predicting that the relief wells will be ready to use by mid-August, but the unpredictable summer storm season may change the target date.

Material from the Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald is included in this report.