Ships ready to leave leaky well as storm brews

Crew members aboard dozens of ships in the Gulf of Mexico prepared Thursday to evacuate as a tropical rainstorm brewing in the Caribbean brought the deep-sea effort to plug BP’s ruptured oil well to a near standstill.

Though the rough weather was hundreds of miles from the spill site and wouldn’t enter the Gulf for at least a few more days, officials ordered technicians trying to plug BP’s well to stand down because they needed several days to clear the area.

Anxiety built among the 75-member crew aboard the cutter Decisive, the Coast Guard’s primary search and rescue vessel that would be the last of about 65 ships to leave in the event of an evacuation.

“It’s a controlled chaos out there,” Lt. Patrick Montgomery told an Associated Press reporter aboard the cutter heading from Pascagoula, Miss., to the spill site.

Just days before the expected completion of a relief well designed to permanently throttle the free-flowing crude, the government’s spill chief said Wednesday that work was suspended.

[more...]