Alex Thomson reports from Venice, Louisiana, where the residents are preparing for the oil spill to come ashore
We are way down the Bayou. And when it comes to being way down the Bayou, Venice is about as way down it as you can get.
The thick, driving tropical rain smashed down all the way last night, as I drove from a massive concrete freeway of central New Orleans, down, down and down into the dark night of the Mississippi Delta.
By night you see nothing – and then the vast, sudden light-show of a refinery or flare stack. By day the light has gone, but the thick tropical rain remains.
With the possible exception of water, Venice Louisiana doesn’t share much with the place of gondoliers. You simply drive down Highway-23 till the swamps and waters finally close in, and the only way back by land is reverse.
This morning, sheltering from the rainy onslaught, groups of burly men, all high-vis and hard hat, stand around – and they wait.
This whole town – well, “town” isn’t the right word – this whole weird collection of docks, service vessels, oil yards and fishing boats, is in suspended animation.
There are yards full of clear-up equipment, oil booms, even catering. But till the weather clears, little is happening. And for the fishermen too, of course, their ground’s now closed.
And as for the perpetrators, well, BP have admitted responsibility for the oil and for cleaning it up.
Potus – visiting Venice yesterday, said so. Venice fishermen and oil men say so. And now Tony Hayward – BP boss – says so.