You may download a copy of this transcript as a PDF. 

Following a hurricane, MMS likes to look at the impacts from the hurricane on the resources and the structures out in the Gulf.  So usually we start doing some studies to examine the impacts of the hurricanes.  These studies look at the impact of waves on structures. These studies look at the impact of the hurricane on the natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico, for instance the artificial reefs, natural reefs, and things along that line.

They are important for several different reasons. First of all, we need to understand how the structures--the infrastructure that holds the steel archipelago together, the oil and gas platforms--we have to understand how these platforms were impacted by the hurricane. We want to ensure that they are safe and structurally intact.  At the same time we have natural resources that could suffer from a hurricane impact.  For instance, certain wetlands could be damaged, certain breeding grounds could be disrupted, certain resources could be diminished. 

I think from our perspective, the public good has to be served, because we need to ensure that energy and the fuel that this country needs is maintained -- the level of activity is maintained so that we keep producing oil and gas so our energy requirements are met.  So we have an obligation to the country to ensure that we try to get all this infrastructure, all this production, back on line as fast as possible so that supply is not interrupted.

We were charged by Congress to examine the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita – they provided us with funding.  So we developed five studies to look at these impacts.

One of the studies that we used looked at the impacts of Hurricane Rita on the Flower Garden Bank.  The Flower Garden Bank is the northern most coral reef in the United States.  It is protected by NOAA and MMS, and we have been studying that reef and protecting it for over 20 years.

Another study is going to be looking at the currents and waves produced by Hurricane Katrina on the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico.  Another study is going to be looking at the socio-economic impact of Hurricane Katrina on the community in New Orleans.  Another study is going to look at the baseline infrastructure and how it was impacted by Hurricane Katrina.  And then we are going to have another study looking at the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the archaeological resources -- the sunken vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.  

Return to Video menu

| Privacy | Disclaimers | Accessibility | Topic Index | FOIA |

Last Updated: 08/17/2007, 08:59 AM Central Time