• Four fishermen missing, one rescued off Texas Gulf Coast

    By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Four fishermen were missing Saturday after their boat sank off the Texas Gulf Coast, said the Coast Guard, which was searching an area about the size of Delaware for the missing men. One other crewmember was rescued a day earlier when searchers found him floating in a life raft.

    The Coast Guard continued its search overnight on Saturday and into Sunday but the rest of the crew remained missing.

    Trouble started aboard the Nite Owl, a 50-foot commercial fishing boat, at around 3:30 a.m. on Friday, when the Coast Guard received a distress signal from the vessel, Petty Officer Richard Brahm said. About five hours after launching a search by air and by sea for the boat -- which started to sink about 115 miles from its home port, Galveston, Texas -- a Coast Guard search team spotted crew member John Reynolds waving his arms aboard his orange raft.

    "They saw a life raft floating. They launched a helicopter, went up there, and there was one guy in the life raft," Brahm said. Reynolds was in good condition, but worried about his fellow fishermen, Brahm added.


    "We dropped him off on our oil rig, and our helicopter kept searching," Brahm said. "They took him back to Houston and continued searching the rest of the night and this morning we started searching again."

    Reynolds was later returned to Galveston, a coastal city about 50 miles from Houston.

    The search, which has covered about 2,000 square miles -- "a little smaller than the state of Delaware," Brahm said -- involved jets and other aircraft as well as boats. The Coast Guard continued its search overnight on Saturday and into Sunday, but the rest of the crew remained missing.

    "When it comes to canceling a search and rescue case, that's really up to our search and rescue coordinators," he said. "They base a lot of factors into calling off a search," including water temperature, wind speed, and the number of people missing. 

    The four missing fishermen were not identified. It's not clear what caused the boat to sink early Friday.

    "The guy that we rescued just said the boat started sinking. He wasn't sure what caused it. That will be part of the Coast Guard investigation," Brahm said.

    Editor's note: An earlier version of this article misidentified the rescued fisherman.

    This story was originally published on Sat Apr 20, 2013 2:07 PM EDT

  • Gulf Coast oil spill trial begins with fingers pointing at BP

    By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Carl Court / AFP - Getty Images

    File

    The trial over the worst oil spill in American history began on Monday in New Orleans, with a slew of lawyers representing the government, businesses, contractors and individuals mostly trying to place the blame on BP for the Gulf Coast oil spill.

    Federal prosecutors and plaintiffs’ lawyers argued the oil giant is guilty of gross negligence that caused the 2010 disaster that killed 11 rig workers and poured 4 million barrels worth of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

    "Not only was it within BP's power to prevent the tragedy, it was its responsibility," said Mike Underhill, a U.S. Justice Department trial attorney.

    Underhill argued that less than an hour after the BP well erupted, the company’s head well site leader noticed a problem in a pressure test.  It was at that moment the well should have been shut off, Underhill argued, but it was not and instead exploded.

    Judge Carl Barbier is overseeing the trial with no jury at the federal court in New Orleans.  BP must show its errors do not meet the legal definition of gross negligence.  The company has already paid $37 billion in cleanup, restoration, fines and settlements since the spill.

    It is likely that a settlement will be reached outside the court room before a verdict is reached.

    BP lawyer Mike Brock argued the company is not solely responsible for the environmental disaster. Instead, that responsibility is shared by rig owner, Transcocrean, and cement services provider, Halliburton.  

    "There were a number of mistakes and errors in judgment that were made by BP, Transocean and Halliburton," Brock said.

    Transocean lawyer Brad Brian said BP had betrayed the trust of the workers on the rig and cited emails in which BP employees referred to it as “the well from hell.”

    Halliburton's lawyer, Don Godwin, equally went after BP, but added Transocean should have shut off the well when the troubling signs were initially noticed.

    "Now is when they want to pass the buck and blame my client for their misdeeds," he said.

    Jim Roy, an attorney representing some of the plantiffs suing the three companies and others, said companies involved shoulder the blame. He told the judge they were motivated by "Production over protection. Profits over safety,"

    Oil reached the shores of all five Gulf Coast states, wreaking havoc on local economies dependent on tourism and seafood. For that reason, there is a long list of plantifs looking for monetary compensation for their losses.

    Despite the cleanup effort, many communities along the coast say they are still feeling the impact from the April 2010 spill.

    Monday marked the opening of the trials first phase, aimed at assessing how much each company is to blame and their degree of negligence.  Future trials will focus on the amount of oil that spilled from the well and the damages.

    BP has denied gross negligence since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.

    Reuters contributed to this report

  • Louisiana cemeteries sinking, washing away due to coastal erosion

    Dave Martin / AP

    A leafless tree stands over graves in the Cheniere Caminada cemetery in Grand Isle, La. Many coastal Louisiana cemeteries are just skeletons of what they used to be.

    The Associated Press reports from Leeville, La. — As a young adult, Kathleen Cheramie visited her grandmother's grave in a tree-lined cemetery where white concrete crosses dotted a plot of lush green grass just off Louisiana Highway 1.

    Now, the cemetery in Leeville is a skeleton of its former self. The few trees still standing have been killed by saltwater intruding from the Gulf. Their leafless branches are suspended above marsh grass left brown and soggy from saltwater creeping up from beneath the graves.

    "It was a beautiful place to visit," said Cheramie, 67, who lives in nearby Golden Meadow. "It hurts to see it now."

    Dave Martin / AP

    What's left of the old Leeville cemetery is only accessible by boat. Some headstones are barely visible above the water, and waves lap at the bricks and concrete surrounding caskets buried at the site since the late 1800s. Much of the ground has subsided to barely sea level, and during Hurricane Isaac, about seven feet of land washed away in the tidal surge.

    Cheramie's small family graveyard is among at least two dozen cemeteries across the southeast Louisiana coast that are rapidly sinking or washing away because of erosion and subsidence accelerated by the tropical punch of storms such as Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, Lee and Isaac.

    Slideshow: Isaac makes landfall on the US Gulf Coast

    Coastal Louisiana has lost about 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s as canals dug for oil exploration allowed salty water to intrude into marshes and a succession of powerful hurricanes sucked marsh muck that protects populated areas out into the Gulf.

    Dave Martin / AP

    Windell Curole handles pieces of headstone at his small family cemetery which sits along the bayou near Leeville. Curole said saltwater from the Gulf is causing a crippling subsidence problem.

    South Lafourche Levee District General Manager Windell Curole, who also serves on the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said saltwater from the Gulf is causing a crippling subsidence problem.

    "We did not bury people in marshes," Curole said. "We buried them on high ground. This was high ground, and now it's subsided to the point of being wetlands and open water." Read the full story.

    Editor's note: Images taken on Dec. 29, 2012 and made available to NBC News today.

    Dave Martin / AP

    Water washes around and against the tombs of those buried in a Leeville, La., cemetery.

     

     

  • Mandatory evacuations outside New Orleans as Isaac nears hurricane strength

    New Orleans may see six to 12 inches of rain, and is gearing up to be one of the worse blows to hit the city since Katrina. Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore reports.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Updated at 2 a.m. ET: Unprotected, low-lying areas outside New Orleans were evacuated Monday as Tropical Storm Isaac grew closer to becoming a hurricane that could make landfall in or near Louisiana almost seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina struck.

    "All preparations to protect life and property should be completed tonight," said Ed Rappaport of the National Hurricane Center in his 8 p.m. ET Monday update. He emphasized that water from rain and storm surge would be the biggest threat -- 6 to 18 inches of rain are expected.

    Isaac's wind speed increased to 70 mph, just 4 mph short of a hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said in a late afternoon update. It also forecast Isaac would reach Category 2 status with 100 mph winds late Tuesday night. That's a stronger Isaac than was forecast earlier Monday. 

    By 2 a.m. ET Tuesday, the center of the storm was 145 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River with maximum sustained winds still at 70mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Isaac was predicted to slow down upon landfall, which forecasters say could be the ultimate test of $14 billion upgrade to its levees and pumps.

    In areas near New Orleans, mandatory evacuations were ordered Monday morning for "our low-lying areas — those outside the hurricane protection system — such as Lafitte, Crown Point, Barataria and Grand Isle," Jefferson Parish President John Young told TODAY. 

    Plaquemines Parish, which stretches 60 miles out into the Gulf, also issued a mandatory evacuation order for its 7,000 residents on its east bank starting at noon Monday.

    "We’re telling them to get out," Parish President Bill Nungesser told MSNBC. "We’re going to get hit first and we’re going to take the worst beating of this storm. So people are heading up the highway now."

    "In our parish there’s one road in and one road out," he added, "and it’s steady traffic flowing out the parish as we speak."

    Isaac is expected to be the first major test of a $14 billion makeover of the system that failed the city so disastrously in 2005. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    Parts of Lafourche, St. Charles, St. John parishes saw mandatory evacuations as well.

    The governors of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi declared states of emergency as a hurricane warning went into effect for a 300-mile swath that extended into Florida. The warning area was later narrowed to between Morgan City, La., and the Alabama-Florida border.  President Barack Obama approved Louisiana's request for federal disaster declaration, Governor Bobby Jindal said. The approval makes federal funds available for disaster recovery activities like clearing debris, Reuters reported.

    "Tonight is when the conditions will start to go downhill" ahead of landfall by Tuesday night, National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb said in a morning update.

    Isaac will probably move slowly inland, possibly dumping as much as 18 inches of rain in places, Knabb said.

    "That's going to be the big problem," NBC meteorologist Al Roker said on TODAY. "We're talking about potentially 24 hours of hurricane force winds and heavy rain."

    "Storm surge is going to be a big, big problem," he added. "Six to twelve feet above normal as you get to New Orleans. Panama City is about four to seven feet."

    Related: Follow Isaac's path with our storm tracker

    The hurricane warning area includes New Orleans, which was devastated when Hurricane Katrina swept over the city on August 29, 2005, killing more than 1,800 people and causing billions of dollars of damage along the coast. A hurricane hasn't hit the Gulf Coast since Ike in 2008.

    New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a briefing Monday that schools and City Hall had closed and that the city's defense network of levees and pumps was ready.

    NBC's Lester Holt reports from New Orleans, La., where residents and visitors are prepping for Tropical Storm Isaac  as it threatens to strengthen into a hurricane before landfall.

    "All pumps are operational," he said. "We are well prepared to go." 

    Landrieu earlier noted the irony of Isaac's arrival. "The timing, as fate would have it, on the anniversary of Katrina has everybody in a state of alertness, but that is a good thing," he said.

    If Isaac makes landfall a bit west of New Orleans, that puts the city in the northeast quadrant of the storm, Roker noted, "and that's the worst place" for storm impact.

    With tropical storm force winds that extend 205 miles from its center, Isaac is an unusually wide storm. 

    "Impacts will be far to the east and to the west of where it comes ashore," Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told TODAY.

    TODAY's Savannah Guthrie talks to Jefferson Parish president John Young about possible impact of Tropical Storm Isaac on Louisiana, how residents should prepare and when voluntary evacuations will become mandatory.

    Related: Reshuffled Republican convention to proceed on Tuesday

    Robert Latham, the director of Mississippi's emergency management agency, urged residents to prepare for the storm's possible arrival.

    "This is important to remember, this is a huge storm," he said. "I don't have to tell you what a storm like that can do."

    Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley ordered mandatory evacuations beginning on Monday for residents in low-lying areas along the coast.

    Oil companies earlier evacuated workers and cut production at Gulf offshore rigs.

    Weather.com reported that areas as far west as extreme southeast Texas should continue to monitor Isaac's progress in case a farther west track materializes.

    Slideshow: Isaac bears down on Florida Keys

    Alan Diaz / AP

    Tropical Storm Isaac rakes the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba as begins to bear down on Florida, where Tampa will be hosting the Republican National Convention.

    Launch slideshow

    Some Gulf residents started stocking up on supplies and securing their homes. In New Orleans, long lines formed at some gas stations and in Gulfport, Miss., people crowded supermarkets to buy bottled water and canned food.

    On Sunday, the storm lashed the Florida Keys and Miami area with wind and rain. Monday morning, some 80,000 south Florida homes and businesses were without electricity due to downed trees that fell on power lines.

    The hurricane warning area includes "quite a few oil rigs," said National Hurricane Center meteorologist Jessica Schauer, but perhaps not the heart of the U.S. offshore oil patch, which produces about 23 percent of U.S. oil output and 7 percent of its natural gas. 

    Once ashore, the storm could wreak havoc on low-lying fuel refineries along the Gulf Coast that account for about 40 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

    That could send gasoline prices spiking just ahead of the Labor Day holiday, analysts told Reuters. "It's going right in the heart of refinery row," Phil Flynn, an analyst with Price Futures Group in Chicago, said Sunday.

    From weather.com: Live updates and analysis


    Isaac's westward track meant the worst of its weather missed Tampa, where the Republican National Convention was to open its four-day meeting on Monday — but official events were delayed until Tuesday because of the storm.

    Tampa and much of Florida's west coast and panhandle saw bands of heavy rain on Tuesday morning.

    "There's an isolated tornado threat in central Florida up through the northeastern Gulf area," Knabb said. "Just because the center is out in the Gulf don't think that in Florida there aren't some hazards."

    Several Republican governors from Gulf states have altered their plans for the GOP convention. Alabama's Gov. Bentley and Louisiana's Gov. Jindal canceled their trips to Tampa. Florida Gov. Rick Scott gave up a chance to speak. 

    NBC's Chuck Todd reports from Tampa, Fla., where delays at the Republican National Convention due to Tropical Storm Isaac are set to disrupt the lead-up to Mitt Romney's acceptance of the Republican nomination for president.

    U.S. grain elevators on the Gulf coast were shut and barges carrying grain and other goods on the lower Mississippi River were halted in preparation for the storm. Archer Daniels Midland closed four elevators in New Orleans, while Cargill said elevators in Westwego and Reserve, Louisiana, will be closed.

    "We have activated our hurricane readiness plan and are taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees and their families, as well as the security of our assets in the New Orleans area," ADM spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said.

    The Mississippi River is a major channel for the movement of grain produced in the Midwest farm belt to export terminals at the Gulf of Mexico for shipment across the world.

    "The safety of our employees is the top priority," Cargill told Reuters.

    In south Florida, winds from Isaac forced cancellations of hundreds of flights in and out of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and other south Florida airports on Sunday.

    Isaac is also affecting cruises around Florida and the Caribbean, according to Cruise Critic, a website that covers the industry. Cruise lines have kept ships at sea, altered itineraries and delayed departures of upcoming sailings, Cruise Critic reported. 

    Related: South hopes for drought relief from Isaac

    Isaac moved into the Gulf of Mexico after spending several days sweeping across the Caribbean.

    In Haiti, Isaac added to the misery of more than 350,000 survivors of the 2010 earthquake still living in flimsy resettlement camps as water gushed into tents and corrugated plastic shacks were ripped apart by the wind.

    Authorities in the impoverished nation said the storm had killed eight people, including three children.

    In the Dominican Republic, officials said three people were missing, and confirmed the death of the mayor of a town near Santo Domingo, who was swept away as he tried to save another person from a flooded river.

    No deaths or injuries were reported in Cuba, which got off lightly when the storm crossed its eastern flank instead of raking up the length of the island as originally predicted.

    Weather.com, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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