those ships atop of the gulf of mexico that will contain, at least try to contain much if not all of that oil. these are critical moments, ed. >> oh, no question, wolf. we've been covering this story for almost three months so to be able to get to this point i think you can see in listening to what thad allen is saying there that this is the best shred of hope they've seen in quite sometime. to put it into a better perspective you have to remember we are probably about a month away, still, from that first relief well not only getting to where it needs to get under ground but also to be able to kill off the line for good. if this were to start working in the next 24 to 48 hours, essentially this process could be sparing the gulf of mexico from almost another month's worth of millions and millions of gallons of oil spewing into the gulf of mexico. that's why the intensity and the critical nature of this you can really kind of see permeating from thad allen's words here. there are thousands of people working on this who clearly are