that blinding light this morning was the sun. a gorgeous shot of new york city this morning. very lovely. the first attempt to contain a massive oil spill in the gulf failed over the weekend. ice-like crystals clogged the containment dome as soon as it was lowered to the ocean floor. what happens now? bp is preparing a smaller dome to try to capture the spewing oil. meantime the situation is growing desperate. one coast guard official suggesting that crews may try to stuff the leaking well head with shredded tires and golf balls. rob marciano has been tracking the cleanup and health risks. he s in mississippi this morning. what s the situation like there today, rob? reporter: well, john with the slick over 6,000 square miles,
april 20th. that explosion, they have now conceded that the number just simply could be much higher. bp is defending its safety record today, the company blames the oil spill on a failed piece of equipment. they still can t say when the leaking well head will be plugged, but brian todd has been following this investigation into the oil rig explosion and spill from venice, louisiana, where the president will end up in venice, what more is being said about how this oil spill occurred and what bp is saying it may be responsible for? reporter: they re still saying that blowout preventer is at the core of the cause of this disaster. whether that could have been sealed off or the explosion could have been prevented in the first place of the use of a remote control switch. bp saying we didn t need that remote control switch, these
two days alone, the u.s. coast guard estimated that some 1.6 million gallons have leaked into the ocean since the april 20th explosion. well, now they can see that number could be much higher there in the gulf of mexico. bp is defending its safety record today. the company blames the oil spill on a failed piece of commitment, they can t say when the leaking well head will be plugged, but brian todd is following the investigation into the oil rig spill from venice, louisiana, brian? reporter: let s update you on what these responders are up against as they try to contain this massive spill. the weather, you can see is the white caps over here, this is what s hampering the efforts to lay boom around here right now, and to deploy underwater dispursements, thunderstorm warnings around here, very heavy winds and white caps here, also noaa, the national oceanic and
according to a newly-released alerted which we re told was written yesterday, the u.s. government gave bp48 hours to draw up a new plan to contain the leaking well head. and as you know, more than 40,000 barrels a day are gushing out of the hole in the sea floor, twice as much as estimates. and they have been capturing some of the oil 15,000 gallons a day. now there are concerns the u.s. says bp will not be able to keep up with the bigger spill estimates. they are worried bp may be in over their head and just yesterday, we learned it may take till july to get a better system in place to better capture the oil. meanwhile, president obama spoke today by telephone to british prime minister david cameron. here is the picture released of the phone call at least the end of it. the president insisted bp, a british company, pay for the