Emergency Management Response Analysis on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Emergency Management Response Analysis: Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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Emergency Management Response Analysis: Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Timeline of Police Response
Similar to Hurricane Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, was accompanied by criticism and blame casting and the federal response was slow. Besides the slow response on the side of the government, state officials seemed not to understand their role in disaster or emergency management response. State officials were quick to point out that they were inadequately consulted. However, regulatory and relief regimes governing oil and natural pollution disasters in the United States differ from those for natural disasters (Birkland & DeYoung, 2011). These regimes were the major cause of blame casting with President Obama asking BP oil to take full responsibility in resolving the crisis. Since the explosion and fire were reported, it took days before appropriate actions could be taken by the police with the U.S. Coast Guard reporting the suspension of the search for missing persons on April 23, 2010, because they were presumed dead (Reuters Staff, 2010). It is only on April 25 that the Coast Guard approved a plan to activate a blowout using remote underwater vehicles to contain the leak. This plan failed with the Coast Guard claiming that the flow of oil was five times greater than the initial estimated. It also took 9 days for President Obama to pledge military support on April 29 in containing the spill from spreading. On the same date, the president also blamed BP Oil and shifted the cleanup responsibility to the company as BP’s CEO Tony Hayward consented that the company would pay all legitimate claims and clean up the spill (Reuters Staff, 2010). The nationa...