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On Board "Kill Well" Rig; BP Documents Reveal Lack of Preparation; Oil Spill Victims Waiting for BP's Check; Bird Rescue Operation; "Thick and Sticky... Like Cake Batter"; Other Oil Disasters Just Waiting to Happen?; Spill Threatens Oldest U.S. Oyster Company

Aired June 10, 2010 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to you. Welcome to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. It is Thursday, it's June 10th. I'm Kiran Chetry in New York. Good morning, John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Kiran, I'm John Roberts coming to you live from New Orleans again this morning. We have got a lot to tell you about this Thursday.

Ahead this hour, worst laid plans. New proof that BP was not prepared at all to deal with a disaster like this. Its emergency contact in the event of a spill has been dead for five years. Also, oil everywhere. A photographer dives into the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by thick, sticky sludge he described as cake batter. And unlike all those pelicans, he got to clean himself off afterwards.

And new questions today about who is calling the shots. BP telling us to turn the cameras off around oily birds when the government already gave our approved permission. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to have to ask you to stop taking pictures.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you said -- they said we could do it as long as we didn't pass the yellow line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: All that in the hour just ahead. But first, we have seen the pictures from the ocean floor, an underwater volcano of oil that's been erupting now for 53 days. But you may not know what's going on on the surface to stop this leak. It is incredible. It is an unprecedented. It is very risky. And above all, it has to work.

I saw the effort in person when I went out to ground zero 50 miles offshore with the man in charge of this effort, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, Doug Suttles. An army of oil workers, many who live along the coast that they are trying to save. They're trying to hit something smaller than a basketball hoop, five miles down on the first shot. It's the closest that BP has allowed anyone to get to their operations to kill the well, something that you will see only here on CNN. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VOICE OF DOUG SUTTLES, COO, BP: And that's the drill ship Enterprise so that's the vessel that's right over the top of the well. And that's the vessel that's taking the production from the cap simply up to the surface. And what you can see that flare is the gas that's with the oil that's being burned off.

ROBERTS (voice-over): He has flown over the scene many times, but for BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles, this was his first opportunity to actually touch down on the rigs attempting to kill his runaway well.

SUTTLES: You're actually looking at something that's never been done before. In fact, we would never have thought of having this equipment this close together working like this.

ROBERTS: We land on the Development Driller 3, the DD-3, a brand-new rig, seeking the first kill well deep beneath the ocean floor. Immediately, we see a stark reminder of how we got to this point.

(on camera): As you arrive on the Development Driller 3, you're met by this sign. It's a safety sign, days without lost time injury, days without major events. And you come over here, the number is 52. Fifty-two days since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank.

(voice-over): But we also get our very first ship board look at the first piece of good news since this disaster unfolded.

DOUG SUTTLES, COO, BP: First of all, you can kind of see down here the water. Now, as I can tell you and I was out here right in the days right after it started, this would have been brown oil. So even though it's horrible to look at, it looks a lot better than what it looked like these first few days. And part of it is what's happening right there, which is -- that's sitting right on top of the well. And of course, it was about yesterday, we got 15,000 barrels of oil up through there, and if that hadn't been there, there would have been oil in the sea.

ROBERTS: It's clear that the catastrophe aboard the Deepwater Horizon has had a profound effect on this drilling crew. Brian West shows me one of his remarkable ROVs that serve as the technician's hands and eyes in the crushing depths of the ocean.

(on camera): What can we put on these arms?

BRIAN WEST, TECHNICIAN: Anything you can think of. We put shears, cutters, grinders.

ROBERTS (voice-over): But look on the side of the submarine, and there it is again, Horizon 11.

WEST: The industry is changing because of this event. It's never going to be the same. ROBERTS (on camera): How do you think it's going to change the industry?

WEST: There will be a lot of safety changes, I'm sure. A lot of procedural changes. Everybody is going to look at drilling these wells and doing these operations totally different.

ROBERTS (voice-over): One difference? There is now an ROV in the water 24/7, keeping careful watch over the relief well's blowout presenter.

James Lusk is the ROV's pilot. A native of Slidell, just north of New Orleans, he takes his professional assignment personally.

JAMES LUSK, ROV PILOT: We all live by the coast. Good to see you. I hope to stop it, sir?

ROBERTS (on camera): For all the containment domes, the siphon pipe, the top kill operation, the top cap, what you see behind me on the Discover Enterprise is probably as good as it's going to get until the month of August because the last best chance to kill that well, to stop the oil from coming up from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico rests here with 189 people onboard the DD-3. And to a person, they say, they are committed to make sure the job gets done.

(voice-over): In the driller shack where cameras have not been allowed until now, a highly skilled crew guides a drill down 13,000 feet. They have 5,000 left to go. Their target -- a hole smaller than a dinner plate. A seemingly impossible shot, yet toolpusher Ted Stukenborg says it's a point of pride to hit it on the first try.

TED STUKENBORG, TOOLPUSHER: It weighs on my mind. I know it weighs on a lot of people's minds that this is something we have got to do right. We've got to do it safe, and we've got to do it the first time.

ROBERTS: The work, long hours in the searing heat, for the most part, has been pretty thankless. Few people are saying anything good about the oil industry at the moment. But they press on in extreme conditions to extreme depths.

STUKENBORG: I think a lot of people don't understand, they don't know. If they understood, if they knew, they probably wouldn't be as hard on us, I think.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: It's easy in a disaster like this to demonize anything and everything dealing with the oil industry. And while I would never presume to weigh publicly in the debate over offshore oil exploration, I can say that I met some very dedicated and very professional people who are working very hard to fix this problem.

Let's send it back to New York now. Here's Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. John, thanks so much. We want to get you caught up on some of the other stories new this morning. One ship's now filling up. BP bringing in a second one to store all of the oil that its cap is now collecting from the broken well. BP says it took in about 15,000 barrels of oil yesterday, or about 630,000 gallons. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said that the amount could nearly double by next week.

And there's a live look right now, a mile under water. BP's live camera showing the capped oil well still gushing out of control. In fact, it's difficult for any average person watching it to see any difference at all. We'll have this up in the bottom right corner of your screen throughout the morning as this disaster continues to grow.

And the Coast Guard now turning up the pressure on BP. "The New York Times" reporting that a top official sent a letter to BP's Doug Suttles, who you just saw with John, telling the company that it has three days to come up with a plan to stop every drop of oil from coming out of that well.

Well, when you talk about plans, planning for this kind of catastrophe was clearly not a priority at BP. And the reason that we say that is because there is a spill response plan for the gulf that was green lighted by the federal government last year, but it is not worth the paper it's written on, you could say. "The Associated Press" did an analysis of the document. We have it here, all 583 pages of it. And what it's riddled with, we found, understatements about the dangers of what an uncontrolled leak would really mean, as well as overstatements about BP's ability to deal with one. And that has Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, outraged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: Look, it's obvious to everybody down in south Louisiana that they didn't have a plan. They didn't have an adequate plan to deal with the spill. And it goes back to the very beginning of this incident. Whether they didn't anticipate the BOP failing, they didn't anticipate this much oil hitting our coast, from the very first day of this incident, they kept telling us, don't worry, the oil's not going to make it to the coast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Well, when you break down BP's disaster plan for the gulf, the plan itself appears to be a disaster. It lists University of Miami professor Peter Lutz (ph) as an expert to be contacted in the event of a spill.

However, Dr. Lutz (ph) died in 2005, four years before BP's plan was written. The document also lists walruses, sea otters and sea lions and seals as, quote, "sensitive biological resources in the gulf." The only problem is none of those mammals live anywhere near the gulf.

BP also lists the names and numbers of marine life specialists to contact in Louisiana and Florida and at Texas A&M University. However, many of those names and numbers were wrong. The document also says that an uncontrolled spill would have, quote, "no adverse effects on the gulf coast because the rig is located so far out to sea."

Well, bad information may be the only thing that you can rely on these days for BP. Right now, thousands of people who make a living off the gulf have suffered a devastating loss. They filed claims with BP that say they're still waiting for their checks. The oil giant, however, though says it has paid out $49 million in claims so far and that another round of checks is on the way. And that will up the total to $84 million.

But as Ed Lavandera tells us, BP's promises are not paying the bills.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EILENE BOURGEOIS, BOURGEOIS CHARTERS: I'm having to fax this paperwork again and again.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 9:00 at night, and Eilene Bourgeois is angry. She's faxing another round of financial paperwork to the BP claims officer. She's done this other and over for 30 days, fighting for money from BP.

(on camera): Do you feel like they're just dragging their feet?

E. BOURGEOIS: I'm not really sure exactly what they're trying to get, but I know that it's a long process. And entirely too long, because next month I don't know that I'll be able to pay my house note because I'm sitting here with no money, no help from BP.

THEOPHILE BOURGEOIS, CHARTER FISHERMAN: So all those paperwork here, we have to take it, copy it, send it in.

LAVANDERA: Eilene and her husband Theophile own a lucrative charter fishing business on the Louisiana bayou south of New Orleans. But the fishing business has disappeared. They've received the initial $5,000 check from BP, but that doesn't begin to cover what they've lost. He's had to lay off all ten of his employees. And he estimates that he's lost almost $300,000 in summer business. But the bills keep coming. Theophile Bourgeois says it costs almost $25,000 a month just to run the fishing line. BP, he says, is moving too slow, asking for detailed monthly financial statements dating back three years.

T. BOURGEOIS: So right now, everything is on the table. We're going to do it and help you out with everything we can. And it ain't working. I mean, there's no payment received on the bayou yet. (INAUDIBLE) is still coming so the thing is what do we do?

LAVANDERA: What do we do? It's a question you hear in nearly every marina and fishing village we visited. What do we do?

(on camera): BP says it has opened up some 39,000 claims across the Gulf Coast. And the company says it's also brought in some 531 adjusters to handle those claims. But that means each of those adjusters is handling almost 75 claims on their own. The manpower simply isn't enough to keep up.

(voice-over): BP says it's paid $48 million in claims already and vows to keep paying personal and business claims as long as the oil disaster keeps people out of work.

BOB FRYER, BP SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT: We will continue to be adding people, offices and resources as required. And we're committing to pool resources of BP to make this process work for the people of Florida and for the other Gulf Coast states.

LAVANDERA: But it's not working for Eilene. The process is taking a stressful toll and she worries the charter fishing business she and her husband have built the last 15 years might not survive the oil disaster.

E. BOURGEOIS: I don't want to lose my home, you know, or anything for that matter. But I know that if we don't get some help soon, that we will definitely lose something.

LAVANDERA: At the Bourgeois charter fishing lodge, the lights are out for the night. But these are rough times and the hope is they'll come on tomorrow and in the days and years ahead.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: Well, it is hard to witness what's happening to some of the most helpless victims of the disaster. More and more crude oil spilling into the gulf and the operation to save oil-soaked pelicans and other wildlife is intensifying.

In fact, our Jim Acosta tried to get a behind-the-scenes look at the operation to clean up and save these animals. He's going to be joining us in five minutes from New Orleans to tell us about the disturbing roadblock that he ran into yesterday while trying to get information on the story.

It's 12 minutes past the hour right now. Time to get a check of this morning's weather headlines. Bonnie Schneider is in the CNN Weather Center for us this morning.

So, have things calmed down a little bit because it's been a week of wild weather?

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It absolutely has, Kiran. And in Texas, especially, wow, we have four to seven inches of water on the ground just to the east of Dallas, Texas. And the rain keeps coming, that's the problem. It's a tropical-like low. So that means we're seeing just a deluge of heavy downpours that will work their way into Arkansas later on today. But in the meantime, a flashflood watch continues straight through tonight. We're also tracking severe weather in terms of sever thunderstorms, and they are firing up over Kansas and Nebraska today.

Kansas City, you're not facing it at the moment but I would say down the hatches, be ready for severe weather this afternoon. Right now, it's working its way across central and northern Nebraska. And really, that's our target area for severe weather today. We have that low tapping into all that warm moisture from the Gulf of Mexico so we'll see heavy rain across parts of Tennessee and into Louisiana. But overall, it looks like the stormy weather will stay in the plains, Kiran?

CHETRY: Well, that's some good news, at least for other parts of the country. But, boy, it has been tough for people in the plain states and Texas these past couple of days.

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

CHETRY: Bonnie, thanks.

Right now, we head down to New Orleans where I understand it's not exactly beautiful and temperate there either, right? Quite hot for you, John?

ROBERTS: It is one of the hottest days that I've experienced in recent memory, yesterday. The humidity (ph) is up about 105. It feels like it's a little bit cooler today, so that will be some welcome relief for everybody who's working so hard trying to clean up the well and clean up the oil from the beaches and the marshes.

You know, if this disaster here in the gulf has taught us anything, it's the so-called fail safe systems that are meant to keep oil out of the water are anything but fail safe. But with so many rigs just off the coast, could this happen all over again? We'll explore that question coming up.

Thirteen minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Seventeen minutes past the hour right now.

The gulf oil crisis is really starting to take a toll on BP's bottom line. When the trading day starts on Wall Street in a few hours, the oil giant's U.S. stock price will be down 16 percent from yesterday's opening bell, starting today at just $29.20 a share. The company's U.S. market value has been cut in half since the crisis started 52 days ago.

And the Obama administration making it clear that BP is also responsible for paying the oil rig employees now out of work because of a six-month moratorium on deep water drilling. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is defending the freeze, and when asked about those workers' paychecks, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made it clear that's all part of BP's constantly growing tab.

So right now, we send it back to New Orleans and John.

ROBERTS: Kiran, thanks. You know, some of the most disturbing images that we've seen from this gulf oil disaster, much like the Exxon Valdez disaster, are the birds and other wildlife coated in oil and fightingfor every breath. Rescuing these birds and nursing them back to health is a complicated and very delicate task.

Our Jim Acosta went to see the operation first hand, and -- and when he did, he hit a roadblock which has left him asking this morning, who's in charge? And he joins us now.

So who is in charge?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's a good question, John. You know, as you know, federal and state authorities are doing everything that they can to rescue birds that are contaminated in the BP oil spill, but during certain aspects of this critical mission, there appears to be a higher authority -- BP.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): Recovering contaminated birds from the BP oil spill is no easy task, as we found out following this crew with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service off the Louisiana coast. The birds don't want to be rescued.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We haven't given up. I think we'd just hide in a rock or something.

ACOSTA: We watched this crew try time and again to net two oil- covered pelicans.

ACOSTA (on camera): You see this pelican right here, he's got oil on him -- on his head and along his back. But he's strong enough where he can hop around from rock to rock and dock to dock.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Birds too oily to survive on their own, but determined to escape.

TODD BAKER, LOUISIANA FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE: There're still quite a few out there. There are still quite a few that have varying degrees of oil, and the problem is most of them are not to the point where they can't fly. So -- which they'll fly and which makes them very difficult to catch.

ACOSTA: Earlier in the day, we saw other crews bring in crate after crate of polluted wildlife to this triage center on Grand Isle. That's where we found the rules for capturing images of these birds had changed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to have to ask you to stop taking pictures in here. ACOSTA: We were asked to turn our cameras off, and this official with the Louisiana State Animal Response Team, or LSART, a contractor hired by BP, told us we could not enter the bird triage center, even though we received permission to do just that from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission.

ACOSTA (on camera): LSART makes the last call on this? LSART makes the final call?

CHRIS BUCO, LOUISIANA STATE ANIMAL RESPONSE TEAM: I make the final conditions -- I mean, the final call, based on the condition of the birds coming in.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Todd Baker with the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Service says it's out of an abundance of caution.

BAKER: It's more important for the animal -- for the animals to have a quiet, calm, controlled area at this point.

ACOSTA: Talking to the rescuers was another problem. One volunteer told us off camera he had signed a document stating he would not talk to the media.

Another rescue worker told us he would be fired if he spoke up, instead, gave us these images. The pictures show birds being scooped up out of the water and loaded into crates -- their first encounters in human hands. The wife of the rescuer who snapped the photo says her husband is having a hard time coping with the job.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's pretty rough (INAUDIBLE). He don't like doing it. You know, it's -- but it's his job. I mean, he don't -- he's an animal fan, you know?

ACOSTA: But why the silence? This BP contract that was initially used to hire rescue and cleanup workers appears to ban any comments to the media. It states, quote, "Vessel owners and employees will not make news releases, marketing presentations or any public statements."

Now, BP insists it's not ordering workers to keep quiet. Asked about that contract, a BP spokesman tells CNN, "BP has not enforced this provision in the Master Vessel Charter Agreement." If that's the case, the rescue workers we found have yet to receive that message.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Now, the rules may be changing for blocking camera access to that bird triage center we told you about. A Louisiana State Fish and Wildlife official told us that he's working on getting a live streaming camera inside that triage center so the public can see the very critical work of cleaning up those oiled -- oil-covered birds all day long.

And that official told us, John, that they're not trying to hide anything. They're just doing this for the sake of the birds. ROBERTS: And transparency has -- has been an issue with this from -- from day one. And I spent the day yesterday with -- with Doug Suttles, the COO for Exploration and Production, and -- and he told me -- he said that, you know, we've, for the most part, have been living life in the background, and this is a new culture for them. And I believe they -- they released a letter yesterday --

ACOSTA: Right.

ROBERTS: -- reiterating to people, it's OK to talk to the media, but it takes a while for that to get out to all the troops in the ground, because there's a lot of them, right?

ACOSTA: That's right, and you go out and talk to any number of these folks, and they'll tell you, they're afraid to talk because they might lose their job. And, as you know, down in these areas where fishermen have lost their jobs, boat captains have lost their jobs because of the oil spill, this is the only work they have, which is doing cleanup work for BP.

But, I got to tell you, when we're on site at this bird triage center, and a guy from the U.S. military comes up and says you can't take pictures in here because of the -- the guy with the foreign company told you you can't --

ROBERTS: Yes, yes, yes.

ACOSTA: That's a -- that's a problem.

ROBERTS: And it's so incongruous, too, because usually when you talk to somebody from Louisiana, you can't get -- you can't get them to stop talking.

ACOSTA: Exactly. That's right.

ROBERTS: Starting is not the problem.

Great piece this morning, Jim. Thanks so much.

ACOSTA: Thanks, John.

ROBERTS: Coming up on the Most News in the Morning, an "Associated Press" video journalist dives into the gulf to get a firsthand look at the oil slick from under the sea. You'll see what he saw just below the surface, and, we'll tell you, it's not a pretty picture.

It's 23 minutes after the hour. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Twenty-six minutes past the hour right now.

A law enforcement official tells CNN that in May, Joran van der Sloot was paid $25,000 in an undercover sting connected to the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. The FBI is now saying that the money did not come from them, but from a private source.

An Interpol document, meantime, says that van der Sloot faces criminal charges in Alabama for allegedly trying to extort money from Holloway's mother in exchange for information about the whereabouts of Natalee's body.

Well, flash flooding in Central Texas kills at least one person and led to dozens of high water rescues. Authorities recovered the body of a 65-year-old man from a river 30 miles northeast of San Antonio. They say they got more than 800 emergency calls because of the flooding. A water treatment plant was also shut down, forcing people to boil their water before they were able to drink it.

The slow-moving storm dumped nearly a foot of rain.

And for the first time since 1961, the Chicago Blackhawks are the Stanley Cup champions. They beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4 to 3 in an overtime game, taking the series in six. Right -- right wing Patrick Kane was able to sneak the puck past Philly's goalie 4 minutes, 6 seconds in overtime and that was all they needed to snag one of the biggest goals in his team's history.

So, congrats.

Meanwhile, we go to New Orleans, back to John. Hey, John.

ROBERTS: All right. Thanks, Kiran.

Now, to a view of the oil spill that few of us ever get to see. It's from below the surface. "Associated Press" video journalist Rich Matthews went diving off the coast of Venice, Louisiana for a firsthand, underwater view of the massive slick.

He says the oil is thick and sticky, almost like cake batter. And Matthews, who's an experienced diver, found a large collection of oil just below the surface. You can clearly see the oil mixed with dispersant in these pictures.

Here's how he described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICH MATTHEWS, VIDEO JOURNALIST, ASSOCIATED PRESS (voice-over): Splashing here 40 miles offshore, the images are heartbreaking -- oil so thick it blocks out almost all of the light below. Because of the darkness, I stayed just 10 to 15 feet under the surface, but I could see oil in every direction, as far as I could look, up and down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: And coming up at 7:40 Eastern here on the Most News in the Morning, we're going to talk with the AP video journalist, Rich Matthews, about his Gulf oil dive. And one question we have, why he would do it without wearing a hazmat suit.

There are systems in place on every oil rig in the ocean with one job, and that is to keep the oil out of the water. Now, 52 days into this disaster, are there other rigs at risk?

We're back live from New Orleans after a quick break. It's coming up now to 29 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Good morning to you. Thirty-one minutes past the hour right now. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.

Hey, John.

ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts, coming to you live from New Orleans this morning. A special edition of AMERICAN MORNING, as we continue to cover the crisis in the Gulf.

A lot ahead on the next half hour, including a look at how this crisis is pushing so many businesses to the brink. In about 10 minutes, I'm going to be talking to the president and general manager of P&J Oysters. He says because of this spill, his company has had to cut their season short. And today is going to be the last day that they'll be shucking fresh oysters.

First, though, here's what else we're covering for you this Thursday morning.

The United Nations Security Council approving a fourth round of sanctions on Iran to try to force Tehran to suspend its nuclear program. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says those sanctions are like a, quote, "used handkerchief that should be dumped in a garbage can."

A deadly attack during a wedding ceremony in southern Afghanistan, near Kandahar. Officials say a bomber detonated the explosives on his vest, killing at least 40 men and young boys. Dozens of others were injured. The Taliban says it is not responsible for the attack.

And a breach in AT&T's 3G network exposed the email mail address of about 114,000 iPad users, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. AT&T has apologized, saying it fixed the problem. The breach was first reported by New York gossip blog, "Gawker."

Those are this morning's top stories. Let's send it back to New York and Kiran.

CHETRY: John, thanks.

When the oil first started pouring into the Gulf, all of the systems that were designed to stop that from ever happening failed completely. And 52 days later, we still have this. That's a live look at the worst oil spill in American history and the oil is still gushing from that underwater well.

So, is this disaster a fluke? Or are there others just like it waiting to happen?

For more, let's bring in senior CNN correspondent, Allan Chernoff. He's been looking into this this morning.

We certainly hope not. But we have no idea for sure.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, unfortunately, experts say, the truth is, yes, there certainly is a possibility something like this could happen again. The industry has treated so- called blowout preventers on oil rigs as virtually fail-safe, but clearly, that's not the case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF (voice-over): An out of control oil gusher off of Western Australia last year. Offshore and onshore, there have been numerous so-called oil rig blowouts. Just like this one in Louisiana, just not as deep as the Deepwater Horizon.

PROF. STEVE SEARS, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY: The blowout preventer should be able to close and prevent any escape from the wellbore. But, obviously, nothing is absolutely failsafe as we've recently seen in the Gulf of Mexico.

CHERNOFF: The safety of oil drilling depends upon the reliability of a blowout preventer. Rig workers use them to keep a well under control, especially when oil and gas surge or kick up from a well.

(on camera): The blowout preventer is basically a faucet on top of the oil well that prevents oil and gas from gushing up to the surface. When its valves don't do the trick, the blowout preventer also can choke the actual drilling pipe, just like I'm squeezing this straw. But when that doesn't do the trick, there's another line of defense, blowout preventers have giant shears that are supposed to be able to cut the drilling pipe, just like I'm snipping this straw.

Now, the problem is, deep under water, the pressure is very intense and these pipes have to be thick, especial the joints between them. And those joints, they are very hard to cut.

(voice-over): A study done for the government's Minerals Management Service warned of such trouble in shearing drilling pipe deep under water. Initial research painted "a grim picture of the probability of success when utilizing this final tool in securing the well."

U Cal Berkeley Professor Robert Bea is the former chief offshore engineer for Shell.

ROBERT BEA, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: That the blowout preventers have a probability of failing to crush that pipe, that approaches 50 percent, that it would be like hitting on an airplane and having a 50 percent chance of making it to your destination.

CHERNOFF: Professor Bea warns blowout preventers are not reliable in the deep sea.

BEA: You can keep on pushing equipment to the point where it breaks. And I think we broke it.

CHERNOFF: In fact, BP told congressional investigators there were leaks in the hydraulic system of the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, as well as a dead battery.

Yet, another safety concerns: the "dead man" system, the final safety switch for a blowout preventer that's lost communication with its oil rig. It's supposed to trigger the blowout preventer to shut the well.

But another study for the Minerals Management Service found, "Many operator and contractor personnel refuse to arm the system from fear that it will either not appropriate when needed or activate inappropriately, causing downtime."

The dead man switch did not activate during BP's April 20th blowout. That's another reason why industry experts concede oil drilling safety improvements are now critically needed.

BENTON BAUGH, PRESIDENT, RADOIL, INC.: This is (INAUDIBLE) an event like this will happen again, we need to be better prepared next time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: All of these problems point to the possibility, however remote, of another tragic accident. That's why the Interior Department is scrambling to toughen up offshore drilling rules.

By the end of the month, companies have to provide the government with independent, third-party verification of the safety and effectiveness of their blowout preventers. And they also have to install, if they don't already have one, a secondary control system for the blowout preventer -- Kiran.

CHETRY: It's sad that it always seems to be that has to happen after something goes horribly after a catastrophic accident. They say this -- I mean, one of the most obvious questions is: why weren't there more fail-safes built into the system?

CHERNOFF: Right. And you can look at the issue of costs. These are very, very expensive procedures and to go forward and to have to add more expenses, the companies hate to do it. But now, they absolutely have to do it.

CHETRY: And there's a question of regulation also. I mean, why wasn't - why wasn't there's a tighter regulator. Why wasn't -- why wasn't there more oversight on exactly what they were doing?

CHERNOFF: Yes. And as we reported, ostensibly, there has been a very cozy relationship, even the administration has now conceded, that cozy relationship between the regulators and also the industry.

CHETRY: Allan Chernoff for us this morning -- thanks so much.

Well, Louisiana's oyster industry has been crippled by this spill. More than just a way to make a money on the bayou, it's a way of life. Now, the oldest oyster company in America is in danger. We're going to be talking to the man in charge about whether or not the industry will ever be able to come back.

Thirty-eight minutes past the hour.

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ROBERTS: Forty-one minutes now after the hour.

Some experts are now predicting that the oil spill will do more long-term damage to New Orleans' economy than Hurricane Katrina did. Oysters are not only big business, but a way of life in the Big Easy. And, today, a 141-year-old oyster house is preparing to shuck what may be its last batch of oysters this year because of the spill.

Joining me now is Al Sunseri. He's the president and general manager of P&J Oysters.

I mean, just give us a broad brush here. How would you describe what's happening with your industry?

AL SUNSERI, PRESIDENT AND G.M., P&J OYSTER: Well, John, it's a totally different way to look at things.

Katrina was one thing. It was a natural disaster. We were able to find out what had occurred shortly thereafter the storm. See how the beds were covered up.

This particular issue is something we've never experienced. We don't know what the oil is going to do, how far inside it's going to come, what the dispersants are going to do. How the spawning cycle is going to work, not only with oysters, but with all the other fisheries.

ROBERTS: You've got some other problems, too. Diversion projects that are trying to keep the oil out by flushing a lot more fresh water through, they're affecting the natural environment that the oysters grow in?

SUNSERI: Yes, we've found because of diversions keeping the -- trying to keep the oil out, are starting to kill the oysters, because oysters need to live in a mixture of fresh and salt water. And if those conditions become too fresh or too salty, the oysters die.

ROBERTS: So, at the moment, there's too much fresh water that's coming?

SUNSERI: Too much fresh water on the northern area of the growing areas. And we're finding it out in the bay as well.

ROBERTS: So, it's affecting the life cycle of the oysters? It's also affecting the taste? We were talking about this --

SUNSERI: Yes, the taste is different in a number of areas that are open currently. The fresh water has taken an effect on it. But that's only part of it. We're going to lose the spawning season.

ROBERTS: So, what are they tasting like now? You're saying --

SUNSERI: They taste like tap water.

ROBERTS: Yes.

SUNSERI: Yes. And that's because of the amount of fresh water. That can happen in any locale in the country when you have massive amounts of rainfall. But, you know, this is an unnatural sort of thing by opening up these river diversions to try to keep the oil at bay, outside of the estuary.

ROBERTS: Now, you mentioned something very important just a second ago, spawning season. How -- how could this affect the oyster harvest for next year?

SUNSERI: Well, that's a real problem. It can be a long-term effect. It takes 18 to 24 months for an oyster to grow to its maturity to be able to be salable. But if we lose this cycle and we lose again in October, if the surfaces are inundated with oil, the reefs in which the oysters will set the spawning of the larva, then we can lose it.

ROBERTS: So, what type of economics are we talking about here, Al?

SUNSERI: I know for myself, I'm a medium-size oyster business, but economically, for people in the fisheries, both commercial and recreational, we're talking a significant amount of economic damage.

ROBERTS: Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions?

SUNSERI: Billions of dollars, and depending on how many years. You know, I'm -- you know, I'm starting to think now years and years rather than in months because of the unknown.

ROBERTS: And what's that going to mean to New Orleans and the surrounding area? Because, you know, you go to a po' boy shop, the thing you want to get is you want to get an oyster po' boy, or you want to get some of these fresh oysters with your meal.

I mean, it's not -- you know, we're talking economics here. We're also talking of lifestyle. We're talking image to the entire area.

SUNSERI: It's part of our culture. You know, it's something that's been part of Louisiana from its beginnings. And our company, which is 134 years old, we've done this and provided oysters to all of these places that you've eaten po' boys at, raw oysters at.

ROBERTS: So, are you going after BP for economic damages? SUNSERI: I just filed a claim. I haven't heard back from them. They said it would be two or three days. They haven't contacted me. I have not had an economic impact as of yet, but I knew this day was coming when I made the call.

ROBERTS: So, when you filed that with them, what do you put down on a piece of paper?

SUNSERI: Well, it's not just a piece of paper. You have to put two years of what your payroll is, your sales, your purchases, all these sorts of things.

ROBERTS: Do you put a dollar value on the compensation you're looking for?

SUNSERI: No, because it's going to be a monthly thing because I still haven't notes to pay. I have loans to pay from Katrina. I have leases on a truck. Again, that's me. What about all the other people that have taken out disaster systems loans, and we still have that note to pay.

ROBERTS: We'll keep following you. We want to know what's going on with you and everybody else in the industry.

Al Sunseri, P&J oysters. Good to talk to you this morning.

SUNSERI: Thanks, John.

ROBERTS: Thanks for coming by. Best of luck with everything. We're really feeling for you because we know how much everybody is hurting with this.

SUNSERI: Thanks.

ROBERTS: It's now coming up on 46 minutes after the hour, Bonnie Schneider is going to ahead this morning's travel forecast right after the break. Stay with us.

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CHETRY: Beautiful sunrise this morning. Coming to us from charlotte, North Carolina, courtesy of WCNC, our affiliate. Right now, it's 72 degrees. A little bit later, though, it's going up to 90, and there are some storms in the forecast. It's 50 minutes past the hour. Let's get more chills (ph) on what we can expect weather wise today.

Our Bonnie Schneider is in the CNN Weather Center. It's getting hot in a lot of places today, huh, Bonnie?

SCHNEIDER: Kiran, the south is going to be sticky, hot, very humid, but I say, the worst of it, unfortunately, is Louisiana. Look at this, we have a heat advisory for almost the entire state, really more the southern parishes particularly down the New Orleans, the highest at even 95. The heat index will climb to 105 degrees. That's what it will feel like. Now, I have to say, in New Orleans, itself, it may feel like it's 110 degrees. That's unbelievable. But it is that urban heat island effect where the heat really accumulates in the concrete.

And the heat will also build across much of the country for today, 91 in Denver, 86 in Dallas, Texas, and 86 in Houston. So, we're looking at some very hot conditions there. Stormy weather through parts of the plain states. We're already getting strong storms in Nebraska and Kansas. Also, of course, the flooding we've been watching down in Texas will persist. A lot of that rain sliding up to the east. For the northeast, it's just some low clouds that linger up with some wet weather through New England. That doesn't mean we're going to see perfect weather for travel, though. You got to see this. We've had some delays out there. New York City, Boston, look for low clouds and showers.

Also in Philadelphia, we look for windy weather, 30 to 60 minutes. In Atlanta, watch out for delays as well due to showers and thunderstorms and more storms are expected with delays out to the west. That is a look to your forecast. Stay tune. We have a lot more coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Right now, we'd like to show you a new initiative from CNN.com called "Home and Away," a tribute to our fallen war heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan. This morning, we honor the memory of Lance Corporal Branden Ramey through the eyes of his brother, Nicholas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF NICHOLAS RAMEY, BROTHER OF LCPL. BRANDEN PAUL RAMEY: Well, my brother, he was four years older than me. He spent every summer with us in California. We spent hours on the water. Once we got out there, you couldn't get us back in. We're talking sunrise to sunset. We were out in the beach. If he'd be with sports, he was going to be the best on the field. If there was weight lifting, he was going to be the strongest in the row. If it was bungie boarding, he was going to catch the biggest wave.

Really competitive. He's very driven. He was your all-American. He's so big. He always laughing (ph). You know, he was like a walking tank. You could hit him with a car, you know, and he'd laugh it off. It didn't matter what you were doing as long as you did it with him, you just had more fun. And that's why I always tell people, if you didn't know my brother, you really got cheated, and you missed out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Lance Corporal Branden Ramey through the eyes of his brother. You can learn more about the brave men and women who paid the ultimate price for America in Iraq and Afghanistan by logging on to CNN.com/homeandaway.

Meanwhile, it's 56 minutes past the hour. Your top stories coming your way after a quick break.

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