Fwd: [EM] Transcript of Adm. Thad Allen's Friday BP oil leak briefing

Transcript of Adm. Thad Allen's Friday BP oil leak briefing. Includes discussion of hurricane and continuity plans:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/25/96568/transcript-of-adm-thad-allens.html

Continuity related items extracted below:

Q: Everyone's watching the weather down in the Gulf, Admiral, can you tell us what kind of storm threat you got and who gets to make the call when the ships have to go in—if they do and how long does it take to get them back (inaudible)?

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, as you know, this has been an issue of ongoing discussion between BP, ourselves, all of our federal partners, DOD, and the state and local governments. We have a very robust hurricane contingency plan that has been produced by our incident commanders.

In general, our threshold to start taking action is 120 hours before gale-force winds are forecasted. That can be a different set of mileage, just depending on the track and the speed of the storm. But in general, at about 120 hours out of the onset of gale-force winds, we will start to redeploy the equipment from the well site, redeploy other equipment to safe venues, and then come in after the storm to re-establish production or to take part in rescue activities with the Coast Guard. We're also looking at continuity of operations plans at our incident command posts, how we'd evacuate our personnel, and so forth.

We're also working very closely with DOD regarding air space coordination. This week, we are standing up an air space coordination function at Tyndall Air Force Base to help us manage the consistent amount of air traffic that's over the gulf region. Tyndall is also pre-designated as the node for rescue and coordination after a hurricane, so there's a natural synergy there between how we would manage the response to a hurricane while we're doing the response to the oil at the same time.

Also, there's an extensive amount of work going on between the Coast Guard and FEMA. I'm working closely with Craig Fugate and Secretary Napolitano on our preparations of how we would co-mingle, if you will, the command structures of the national contingency plan for oil spill respond and Stafford Act response by FEMA.

Q: Admiral, thanks for taking my question. In terms of these contingency plans, where would these facilities go? And where would all of the personnel go? And how long would it take to get them back into place once a storm threat passed?

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, first of all, we would designate essential and non-essential personnel, and non-essential personnel would basically take shelter. Ideally, we would not do this at the same time they are trying to do an evacuation of citizens, so there's a staging of this, and we actually would coordinate that with FEMA and the local governments.

We are identifying continuity of operations where we could locate some of the background operations. Of course, we would continue to coordinate with the state and local governments and would be collocated with them and their emergency operations centers to make sure we maintain continuity of operations.

So the answer kind of varies depending on what you do, how essential your job is, how do we maintain the command-and-control communications, but most importantly, it's how we maintain connections with the local states and local governments.

So they're nuanced plans, and they're scalable, and they're rated based on what your function is, and at what point you might need to be evacuated. Is that responsive?

Read more:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/25/96568/transcript-of-adm-thad-allens.html