The rescues are complete, the fires are out, the search for the missing is over. Now as normally occurs, the blame game begins. Some of that is detailed in the NY Times BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act
BP is what is called the Responsible Party which is all defined in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP)
What all this means is that BP is on the hook for the cost of clean-up, to include the costs associated with the government side of the response. There is a Unified Command that is established. The Coast Guard is the overall Incident Commander (using the ICS system) with BP participating and funding the operation. They get to offer suggestions, coordinate their private sector response with that of the government. The bottom line is they write the checks for all costs associated with the spill. The last estimate I saw saw those costs could run up to $3 Billion
Naming the spill and keeping the BP name out of it was lucky for their corporate brand. Perhaps it wasn't all luck. The public information center for these oil spills is the only true Joint Information Center (JIC) that I'm aware of. It is doubtful that there are "multiple JICs) being established in this particular incident. This forces BP and the government to both stand up and in the same briefing give their version of what they are doing. Having a JIC helps in the coordination on the operational side because it keeps the participants talking on both the response and information dissemination side of the equation. I wonder if they will eventually add some social media to their web site?
My other thought about the incident is how worst case planning can pay off. Anticipating how bad things can get allows you to have more resources immediately available for when the bad news does get worse.
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BP is what is called the Responsible Party which is all defined in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP)
What all this means is that BP is on the hook for the cost of clean-up, to include the costs associated with the government side of the response. There is a Unified Command that is established. The Coast Guard is the overall Incident Commander (using the ICS system) with BP participating and funding the operation. They get to offer suggestions, coordinate their private sector response with that of the government. The bottom line is they write the checks for all costs associated with the spill. The last estimate I saw saw those costs could run up to $3 Billion
Naming the spill and keeping the BP name out of it was lucky for their corporate brand. Perhaps it wasn't all luck. The public information center for these oil spills is the only true Joint Information Center (JIC) that I'm aware of. It is doubtful that there are "multiple JICs) being established in this particular incident. This forces BP and the government to both stand up and in the same briefing give their version of what they are doing. Having a JIC helps in the coordination on the operational side because it keeps the participants talking on both the response and information dissemination side of the equation. I wonder if they will eventually add some social media to their web site?
My other thought about the incident is how worst case planning can pay off. Anticipating how bad things can get allows you to have more resources immediately available for when the bad news does get worse.
