The sky is a dusty pale blue, with only one puffy cloud and some jet trails to mar its perfection. Normally, it would be considered a beautiful day but the dread and terrible possibilities seem to hang in the air like grey matter.
Last night there was an oil rig explosion off the Louisiana coast. Most of the men working on that rig were from south and central Louisiana. One of the seriously injured is from our wee town and three of the missing this town's sons. As of now, they haven't been found. There's a good chance if they made it into the waters they will be found by the Coast Guard as seas were low and the weather good.
This was a devastating explosion which we heard sunk the drilling barge/ship/platform pretty quickly. How often do we see reports like this on the news and not knowing the victims, we forget that someone just like us is suffering the loss or uncertainty about his or her loved ones.
Ironically, the breaking news of the Steelers quarterback has now taken over the followup of this story so it's difficult to stay on top of the progress.
I can ONLY imagine what these families are going through...
UPDATE - unfortunately the most 'local' channels to our area are at least 75 miles away and they aren't covering the explosion so we're forced to get news on the web or CNN. As of this morning, they are still searching for the 12 missing workers.
2 comments:
It was in our morning papers, Marley and, of course, explosions on offshore platforms reawaken sharp memories for folk in Aberdeen of the Piper Alpha disaster. Having written umpteen safety induction videos for offshore platforms and made some trips out to them myself, I shudder at the horror of what the people out there went through.
I lay awake thinking about them last night and our poor friends. You're right - no one can understand like those from aberdeen.
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