More thoughts on Deep Horizon's Final Hours.. from Engineering Ethics Blog

http://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/night-to-remember-on-deepwater-horizon.html

Good Pearl..

"Meetings  are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate." -Dave Berry

Deep Horizon's final hours provides valuable lessons for the field

If you didn't catch it this weekend or don't subscribe to the New York Times (who doesn't??), the front page story titled "Deep Horizon's Final Hours" is well worth the read.  The story covers the various equipment and operational/human faults that incremently (and allegedly) led to failure of the final well seal, blowout, exposion, and emaergency evacuation of the rig.  There are many lessons and reminders to be gleaned for the field operator, particularly if you're involved in confined space and/or dive work, or furthermore conducting such operations in hazardous environments.  As you would imagine, the article really had me thinking about company safety practices and standards, regular training and rehearsing on reaction to emergency situations.  But it goes further, digging into the questions like 'is this procedure we're practing so much and hammering into out skulls even adequate or enough to address the potential threat?', and 'who has the authority to override and standard procedure or checklist in the heat of the moment out there?'  'How many other bugs and surprises in the system are lying in wait for that first component to fail, ready to snowball on me?'   I recall in my military days that space operations was extremely checklist-oriented, and did not typically even leave opportunity for "manual overides" by superior officers in those emergency procedures.  We were often told in training and practice that as long as you stick to the checklist, you're golden and nobody could touch you no matter what the result was.  Nowadays I reside in the gray world of 'engineering judgement', where black and white checklists can be overriden at anytime as needed per the situation.  The Captain on this rig apparently overrode the decision of the operator to hit the emergency disconnect switch per protocol... the gal supposedly acknowledged, silenced and basically failed to act upon the many gas warnings per protocol... The best laid plans and procedures can certainly go to pot in the fog of war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/26spill.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

Liquid diver ventilation.. Awesome! Where do I sign up?!

http://cdiver.net/news/into-the-abyss-the-diving-suit-that-turns-men-into-fish/?utm_source=Main+cDiver+List&utm_campaign=f9e6db1a8b-Newsletter_46-12_01_10&utm_medium=email

Diving the rest of the bridges in Wisconsin

On this last dive trip to check out bridges up north before the snow flies, the smallest and most unassuming structure of the bunch ended up providing the most notable lesson of the week - don't let your gaurd down, assume things or get bored or you'll make a mistake.  This unimpressive structure had only a pair of footings in shallow water in a nondescript stream with no discernible flow.  It was just after lunch, so feeling lethargic from the morning's dives and food, I suggested it'd be a good training dive for our newer dive inspector.  Probes along the bottom of the sheet pile with a level rod revealed no hint of problems , and about 9 or 10 feet of water at the most.  Since guidelines for the project dictated the PE-Diver has to dive at least 50% of inwater elements for each bridge and this one had two small footers, the new guy ended up running the console topside and I ended up in the water anyway.   I groped along in the murk not expecting much of interest, thinking that I was already hungry for my Subway bag of chips I'd saved.  Lo and behold, on the deeper of the two footings, the bottom of the sheet piling around about half of the circumference was exposed above the bed about 6 inches or so.  Probes underneath revealed a significant void that penetrated back into the original, deteriorted column.  The engineer standing on the footing above me reported noticeable vibrations with passing traffic.  We ended up with a total of three dives on the footing, with two different PE's groping and probing around down there.  Just goes to show you - gottta stay sharp, even on the eazy-cheezy ones.

Well jolly good for the Brits

Sure wish we could pull our heads out and get some real wind farms going, especially offshore.  We're still arguing over the first one (maybe... Cape Wind).  2200 divers needed... 3800 turbines by 2016.  All those engineers and techs too.  NICE!

Petting gators in FL

This is actually from a trip several months ago - inspecting bridge in Florida and came upon this guy.  They're actually quite docile.... when they're dead!

Bridge inspections in Wisconsin

I'm Gumbi damnit!

For coastal work, even up in NYC, fall diving in October is still awesome - the air is cool, the water still in the 60's and you can still wear a wetsuit.  Unfortunately, the rivers of the upper midwest are already in the 50's, as is the air temps... so break out the Gumbi suits!

Port facility inspections in Alaska

 We woke up on the boat in Bartlett Cove to see and hear this huge sea lion thrashing some good size fish around about a dozen feet off the rail.

 Taking a break from report writing during the day-long journey up to Glacier Bay from Gustavus.

 Up the fjord about as far as you can go without breaking out the dinghy, which the guys soon did...

 Sunset in the Auke Bay area near Juneau - amazing..

 Apparently bald eagles are like pigeons up there to the locals - they're everywhere.  Still very impressive and intimidating when they're staring down at you on the dock..

Ah, home sweet home for 2 weeks...