• About Earth Crimes
• The Gulf Oil Spill of 2010
• Contact

Tools for tracking the spill

The spill caused by the April 2010 oil rig explosion in the gulf coast is by no means predictable - water currents, wind direction and the shear pressure alone of the pipeline make it very difficult to determine where it is going to come ashore next. A lot of heavily traffic ed tourist destinations and well populated areas are getting quick response from BP but today I have gone out "looking for trouble".

The following tools I have found to be incredibly useful.

1. My Motorola Android phone - The built in navigation system is great - it uses the google maps program in conjunction with GPS services to really perform.   I plug it in to my stereo, press a button and yell at it as if it were my co-pilot (though it is not as good as real company.
2. Weather.com text alerts - After signing up for a free account, I just pop in my current zip code and give it my phone number and blammo! - I'm the first to know of approaching storms.  (saved me from loosing my tent already) - get it here.
3. ERMA - A Google Maps API with many contributing data sources tracking and analyzing data from the spill,  check it out.
4. Another good interactive map showing the time progression of the spill and where its hitting shore (that is also a bit more simple) is available via USA Today. Unfortunately it is in flash and mobile devices like my droid are not currently supporting it.
5. Police Scanner - I don't have one of these but the reporters from Fox that I was talking to said it was indispensable.I can see their reasoning but this trip is already going over budget so that one will have to wait a little while.
6. People Skills - Not that I have an abundance of this but it helps to be able to shoot the shit with locals, they always have the good stuff. People WANT to help - let them.