Disasters

"Hurricane Alex churned through the western Gulf of Mexico overnight, slowly picking up steam as officials in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas made preparations."

"About 50,000 sea turtle eggs from beaches in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama will be dug up and moved to Florida's Atlantic Coast in hopes of keeping the hatchlings alive in the face of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill."

"In the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Alex is threatening to build into a full-blown hurricane. It could threaten the coast of Texas or Mexico, but at this point it does not appear to be headed for the blown-out oil well off Louisiana. Even so, it's quite possible that the storm could spawn 10- to 12-foot waves, which could sweep across the Gulf and complicate efforts to control the spewing oil well."

"When two Alaska state agencies received complaints in 2005 that a BP drilling contractor routinely cheated on tests of blowout preventers and that BP knew it, the agencies let the very companies accused of wrongdoing join the investigation."

Some oil companies have been drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere at depths far greater than the BP's blown-out Macondo well. That drilling raises unique engineering challenges -- and also raises questions about whether the companies have adequately addressed unique environmental risks.

"BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. — Nine weeks into the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there is more money in this small, hardscrabble fishing town than there has been in decades, residents say. There are more high-paying workdays, more traffic accidents, more reports of domestic violence, more drug and alcohol use, more resentment, more rumors, more hunger, more worry."

"Tropical storm Alex became better organized as it slowly moved away from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and forecasters said it could become a hurricane on Monday or Tuesday. Coast Guard officials have said they do not think the storm poses an imminent threat to oil-siphoning efforts at BP Plc's blown-out Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico."

"On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman struck down the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. A review of Judge Feldman's 2009 Financial Disclosure Report shows that Feldman is significantly invested in BP, which is on the hook for the Deepwater Horizon disaster."

"BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one."