The situation briefs at the Houma general staff meetings for the oil spill response center contain snippets of information from the various parts of the organization which are out in the field doing work and reporting back. There is a flotilla of boats out working with boom, skimmers, transporting wildlife folks for picking up oiled and un-oiled birds, turtles, etc..., looking at beaches and making determination about what needs to be cleaned and what should be left alone. The marsh is largely going to get worse the more you walk in it, and so taking all the boom away and letting any oil which has washed ashore get flushed out by the natural action of tide and evaporation and bugs which seem to like eating it is the best solution at this point.
So the briefing today contained a report of a boat which had been tied up at a dock. The boat owner had gotten onto the dock but the boat drifted away. He jumped into the water and started swimming after the boat but apparently he realized he wasnt' going to make it, so he stopped. But then his clothes began to bog him down and he peeled them off, down to his underwear and swam back to the dock. He couldn't get out though, and was clinging to a piling when the wildlife folks came by in there boats and picked him up.
One un-oiled man in the report this morning.
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