Nobody panic: a hurricane going over the gulf oil slick would only create a light mist of oil covering everything

Concerns over possibility of hurricane-oil slick combination

SARASOTA - Adding to the worries of those watching the gulf oil spill is hurricane season. The two have never before combined, but it creates deep concerns over what kind of natural and manufactured disaster could come on our shores.

With only three weeks until the beginning of hurricane season, the BP oil rig is still pumping 200,000 gallons of oil into the gulf each day. We sat down with ABC 7 Chief Meteorologist Bob Harrigan to talk about how hurricane patterns will effect the oil slick, and Sarasota County's Emergency Management on how we can prepare for the worst case scenarios.

City and county leaders say an oil slick 350 miles to the northwest would most likely bring a different kind of beach hazard to the Suncoast. "We don't expect to see a continuous sheet of oil. We expect to see tar balls, patties that will come up periodically and maybe for several years," says emergency management chief for Sarasota County, Ed McCrane.

But stopping a growing oil slick in the summer months won't be an easy fight if mother nature changes the battle field. "The worst case scenario would be for a large hurricane to get into the Gulf of Mexico and actually kick up the seas enough to cause that oil to become airborne and then be transported with some of the showers of the mist," says Harrigan.

And if it comes far enough onshore, oil-filled spray could land on houses and flood streets. "So I don't think it would be widespread, but you could see and notice the smell of some of that oil in the rain drops if a hurricane were strong enough."

And a hurricane doesn't necessarily have to hit the gulf, for that oil to move closer to the Suncoast. "The west coast of Florida could be vulnerable if a storm were to move to Miami. Those winds would all switch around to a northwesterly direction over that spill and blow it right into our coastline," says Harrigan.

Sarasota County Emergency Management is trying to stay a few steps ahead of the oil slick's movement. They have daily conference calls with the Coast Guard and other gulf coast states' emergency teams. "That we can learn lessons from what's happening up there...take advantage of some of their successes and not make some of the mistakes they made as well," says McCrane.

Suncoast homeowners say they're used to preparing for hurricanes. But combining a natural disaster with a manmade one is something that would need a new defense plan. "Right now I don't think there's very much that we can do. You can try to support and take action, you can donate money or hours or whatever, but a lot of it is looking at the heavens and praying," says Lido Key resident Nigel Mould.

Sarasota city and county officials say they get a lot of calls from people wanting to help in any way that they can. The county says it's not looking for volunteers because BP is supposed to be picking up the clean-up bill. So in the next couple of days, the county website will advertise for beach clean-up training classes you can sign up for.

And Lido Key homeowner Mould is also doing something. He's hosting a fundraiser for Mote Marine's oil spill research on June 5th.

[link to www.mysuncoast.com]