Pensacola Beach & Oil Spill

By: Michael Stevens
06/02/2010 11:33 AM ET

Pensacola Beach & oil spill from Gulf of Mexico. Beach area residents are taking precautions as the oil could hit by Wednesday evening from the Gulf spill. Pensacola Beach will be one of three states that could be hit by the oil spill, but officials are still playing down the likelihood of a disaster.

“It’s inevitable that we will see it on the beaches,” Keith Wilkins, Escambia’s deputy chief of neighborhood and community services, said in a statement. A charter boat captain reported the oil Tuesday afternoon and state & local environmental officials confirmed that it was about 10 miles from Pensacola Beach. Winds are forecasted to blow from the south and west, pushing the outer edges of massive slick from the spill closer to western Panhandle beach.

Beach emergency crews began Tuesday scouring the area for oil and shoring up miles of boom. Escambia County will use it to block oil from reaching inland waterways, but plans to leave coastlines unprotected because they are too difficult to protect and easier to clean up. The oil spill’s arrival coincides with the beginning of the Panhandle’s summer tourism season, which normally brings millions of dollars to the region.

Oil has been creeping toward Florida since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and eventually collapsing into the Gulf of Mexico. An estimated 20 million to 40 million gallons of crude has spewed into the Gulf, eclipsing the 11 million that leaked from the Exxon Valdez disaster. The rig was being operated by petroleum giant BP, which has tried unsuccessfully for six weeks to stop the leak.

Filed Under: World News – Pensacola Beach & Oil