Oil Spill Closes In on Gulf Coast States
BP's chief executive said Tuesday workers may be able to stop most of the oil leak by early next week. They plan to drop a containment dome over the blown-out well.
For now, there's nothing stopping it as it threatens the Gulf Coast, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann.
Where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf, workers floated more protective booms Tuesday morning. With an estimated two million gallons of oil now in the water - and shifting winds and currents - where and when will it make landfall?
"Everybody might logically think it's moving closer, closer, and it must be moving closer," said Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry. "Not necessarily."
Special Section: Gulf Coast Oil Disaster
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Gulf Oil Spill Containment Efforts
So where's the oil now? Ten miles off-shore, southeast of Louisiana's south pass, ribbons of rust-colored crude oil, one after another washing toward shore.
In one slick, a Portuguese man-of-war struggled, barely alive. In the middle of one of the first slicks - a mix of gulf water and light crude - it really does smell like oil.
The oily blob now sprawls across 2,000 square miles, 1,400 square miles smaller than last week, as chunks of it break away.
Landfall is still not projected for the next three days.
When the spill hit, no one had a detailed emergency plan, even after Hurricane Katrina. Kevin Davis couldn't wait.
"I'm going to do what I have to do," Davis said.
Davis rented coastal protection St. Tammany Parish couldn't afford, miles of boom for $10,000 a day.
"I'll worry about the fingerpointing and who's going to pay us at some point down the road," Davis said.
Federal law caps BP's liability at $75 million. On Tuesday, the company exceeded that, promising $100 million to cover damages in four Gulf states.
That's not nearly enough for three Democratic U.S. senators. They want the cap hiked dramatically to $10 billion.
"Basically we are saying," said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, "the polluters should pay."
