so, when they re searching, all those probabilities are, you know, taken into account. are they in a raft? you know, they could be floating on a piece of equipment. they could be, you know, if they re wearing life jacket, you know, they could be in the water, all those different things we take into consideration. so, that s why we surface assets as well as air and get out there and do a very intensive search. okay. senior chief petty officer michael o berry, stand by. he s with the u.s. coast guard. breaking news in right now that we re covering. the deepwater horizon, the oil rig that had the explosion on it, has sunk below the surface in the gulf of mexico. we ll continue our coverage of this in a moment. [ male announcer ] nature valley
has now sunk. this was a concern. we are getting more information about this. you re looking at pictures. these are taped pictures earlier of the battle to try and get that under control. but the deep water horizon, the name of the rig, operated by trans ocean been on behalf of bp, deep water horizon has sunk in the gulf of mexico. this is in modern times outside of a hurricane, lately, almost unheard of. there have been accidents, there have been fires, there have been some fatalities over the years. first of all, we have not seen an explosion or a mass i incident on a rig outside of a hurricane for some time. but to see a rink a rig actually go down into the ocean is a very, very serious and concerning matter. we re going to discuss the impact that has on safety in the water and offshore rigs. we re going to bring back some of our experts on that. we do have it now from the u.s. coast guard the oil rig has sunk in the gulf of mexico.
energy reporter with the houston chronicle, and senior petty officer michael o berry with the u.s. coast guard. the deepwater horizon, that burned for 40 hours in the gulf of mexico, has now sunk. 11 workers are still missing. the coast guard actively looking for those 11 workers. sort of a dual mission now, the coast guard in a supervisory role over dealing with this rig and the hole and the oil that is going into the gulf of mexico, about 336 barrels gallons a day. michael, tell me what do you know the course of events? you ve got a report that this thing s on fire? did you get a phone call? how does it work? typically those rigs, i know we got the call at 10:00 on tuesday. the command center would have gotten a phone call either from the company, usually will call. because the company also hires fire companies that come out to help put out the fire. so, the company would have called us at 10:00 p.m. and said there s been an explosion, a fire. at that point is when we launche
i understand? yes, they do. and they ve got all sorts of alarms if there s something called a hot job, something that could cause an explosion or fire, there s firefighters on on site all the time. i remember the last time i was on a rig and the helicopter landed, at the ready there were firefighters. they re ready there with the ability to hose something down. so, what are you were you surprised when you heard there was an explosion or a fire on a rig that was not contained? yes. it s as some would say, it s very unusual for this to happen out in the gulf of mexico. there s thousands of rigs out there. as i mentioned before. 30,000 workers a day go out there to work. and it s a very unusual occurrence. they re well trained, as you said. they go through inspections and they go through safety drills, and they did a good job here. there s what s attached to this, too, 115 of these workers have reunited with their families and that s a testament to the training and the oth
everyone else and i am going to work very, very hard to put this all in perspective from different perspectives. plus gulf of mexico oil rig. you can bet the explosion on this rig was felt across the oil industry. some are wondering how safe drilling for oil offshore actually is. are you going to end up feeling the effect where s you live? we ll look into it. earth day, 40th ert day. don t worry i m not going to hug a tree or tell you to get a grano granola. i m going to tell you the number one thing you can do to change your environment, help the earth and i am going to dispel a few myths. get on board or get out of the way. that s the words the president said to the football industryfi tries to pass the most fundamental changes since the 1930s. we also says, and i m