By Ben Elgin June 10 (Bloomberg) — Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary E. Landry was up early on Saturday, April 24, preparing to brief news reporters on the deadly explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig when BP Plc called with bad news: The well was leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico, 5,000 feet below the surface. She dashed off an e-mail to inform several admirals about the leak that was destined to become the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. In the subject line she typed, “GAME CHANGER.” After serving 42 days as the coordinator of the U.S. government’s response to the undersea gusher, Landry is now preoccupied with planning for a second potential game-changing event: the Atlantic hurricane season that began June 1. The government forecasts more storms than normal, increasing the risk of delays and complications in a response effort already pockmarked with failures. As the public face of federal oversight, Landry brought optimism to news briefings — her Facebook page says the glass is always three-quarters full. As hurricane planner, she’s keeping that outlook, even though she says there’s little that can be done besides arranging safe moorings for cleanup vessels and moving aircraft, ships and workers into position to help repair any additional damage more quickly in the aftermath. Three efforts to stanch the flow of crude oil into the Gulf failed — peaking on May 29 when BP acknowledged that its “top kill” plan hadn’t stopped the leak. While government estimates peg the flow at 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day, scientists involved in the measurement say it could be significantly more. A funnel-shaped cap placed atop the well on June 3 is now capturing as much as 15,000 barrels a day, the company says. ‘New Dimension’ For Landry, the time it’s taking to control the flow only brings added risk. “This adds a new dimension of complexity that nobody anticipated,” said Landry, 53, head of the Coast Guard’s Eighth District , a command that spans 26 states and is located in New Orleans. A direct hit by a hurricane could spread more widely an oil spill that has already surpassed the Exxon Valdez in volume and was described by President Barack Obama as “the worst environmental disaster of its kind in our nation’s history.” Oil has washed ashore in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, while tar balls and oil patties have hit some Florida beaches near Pensacola. Several research models indicate it could eventually make its way up the Atlantic coast. About 78,000 square miles of the Gulf, or about 32 percent of federal waters, have been closed off from fishing. Obama’s political standing is in jeopardy as well; in an ABC News/Washington Post poll published June 7, 69 percent of those polled rated the federal response to the spill as “not so good” or “poor.” Oily Storm Surges A category III hurricane with winds between 111 and 130 miles per hour could blow coastal water as much as 12 feet above normal, according to a Coast Guard hurricane readiness plan. Such storm surges “may carry oil into the coastline and inland as far as the surge reaches,” according to an information sheet from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which forecasts weather in addition to other duties. NOAA predicts a 70 percent chance that 14 to 23 named storms, including as many as seven major hurricanes, will form in the Atlantic in the next six months. The seasonal average is 11 named storms and two major hurricanes. While the agency doesn’t predict the likelihood of storms in the Gulf, all active hurricane seasons have produced at least one named storm there. In half the busy hurricane seasons on record, at least one major storm has hit the Gulf in June or July. Unpredictable Situation Timing is crucial. BP isn’t slated to finish drilling a relief well aimed at permanently ending the leak until August at the soonest. Oceanographers are loath to predict what might happen if a hurricane hit the spill. “We’ve never been in this situation before,” said Robert H. Weisberg , a professor of oceanography at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg. “If anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen, they’re full of crap.” There is no way to prevent a hurricane from wreaking havoc in the oily Gulf, Landry said in an interview, speaking in a matter-of-fact cadence that recalls her native Buffalo, New York, spiced by years spent with the Coast Guard in Boston. Still, effective planning and response can limit the fallout and speed the resumption of efforts to control the leak, she said. ‘Lot of Legwork’ “There is a whole lot of legwork to get prepared to batten down the hatches,” she said. Ships, planes and rescue workers must be positioned ahead of time. Safe moorings must be found for all vessels in the Gulf and inland waterways — including the thousands involved in the oil-leak response. “There’s a huge footprint for the Deepwater Horizon response efforts that has to be managed,” she said. BP would lose seven to 10 days’ time on drilling relief wells in the event of a hurricane strike, said Lewis Kreps , an analyst at C.K. Cooper & Co. in Dallas. The oil company and the government are trying to determine whether a floating oil-collection platform or other equipment could remain on site “while a hurricane comes through,” Landry said. While she coordinated the federal response, Landry tried to pepper bleak news conferences with bits of positive information about successful cleanups or containment of oil slicks. ‘Can’t Be Afraid’ “You have to give people hope,” she said. “You can’t be afraid. In a time of crisis, there’s positive energy and negative energy. We need to find the positive energy and solve this problem.” At times, that approach left the government’s key spokeswoman appearing more sanguine than even BP. On May 28, for instance, Tony Hayward , the London-based oil company’s chief executive, called the Deepwater Horizon spill “clearly an environmental catastrophe.” Landry has intentionally avoided that language, she said. “I don’t like the word ‘catastrophe,’” she said. “You have to hold out hope that you can save this ecosystem, that you can save the wildlife.” Holding news conferences with BP officials, Landry sometimes chided the company if she felt it was too optimistic. Douglas J. Suttles , BP’s chief operating officer, said May 29 that capping the well “should take approximately four days, but it could take longer.” ‘Manage Expectations’ Landry later admonished him in front of the reporters. “We have to manage expectations, because we’re all on a roller coaster ride here,” she said. “So when he said four days, I said, ‘Don’t even say four. Say four to seven.’ Because let’s be honest; we may have some slowdowns.” Admiral Thad Allen , who took over the news conferences this month, now runs them alone, without the company. While Landry would occasionally defer to BP officials on technical questions, Allen handles all questions, using terms that suggest the government is doing more to stop the leak. He frequently used the term “we” in describing efforts to shear off part of a pipe before capping the well — even though BP workers and contractors performed the task. Allen has commended Landry “for her exceptional performance.” Her reassignment on June 1, the beginning of the six-month hurricane season, had “been the strategy since the beginning of this response,” said Admiral Robert Papp, the Coast Guard commandant, in a news release. Lost Market Value BP has lost 40 percent of its market value since the crisis began, and U.S. shares have fallen by more than half. The American decline includes a 16 percent drop yesterday, after Societe Generale said the largest oil and natural-gas producer in the Gulf may not make its next quarterly dividend payment. The U.S. government is investigating potential criminal and civil violations related to the spill, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder . Landry characterized her approach to BP : “They can tell you something but you check it out.” Mostly, the company has done what it promised, she said, “but a couple of times I’ve been disappointed.” For example, BP needed her prodding to equip cleanup crews with temporary housing and supplies at remote coastal sites so workers could avoid traveling several hours each day, she said. BP was working to develop more temporary housing for workers, Suttles said during a May 29 news conference. Toby Odone , a company spokesman, declined additional comment. Honorary Cousins Landry grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood of Buffalo. Her Irish Catholic family included 28 cousins living within blocks of each other. Neighborhood kids, jealous of their camaraderie, would ask if they could be cousins too. “We would say OK and knight them, but just for one day,” she said, laughing. Money was tight. Landry’s father, Bill Tatu, worked in sales and management for Booth Oil in Buffalo, a now-defunct company that reprocessed and sold industrial oils. Her mom stayed at home. Landry worked as a clerk in a drugstore during high school. “Nothing was ever handed to us,” her older sister, Margaret Fisher, said. “Mary always worked exceptionally hard.” After graduating from the State University of New York at Buffalo, she approached her father, an Army veteran, about joining the Coast Guard. Bill Tatu wanted no part of that. He wanted his daughter to go into fashion merchandising or a similar field. “I think he wanted to protect me,” she said. Years after she enrolled in the Guard’s officer candidate program in 1980, her father “ended up being very proud,” she said. ‘Socially Isolating’ At the time, women made up 11 percent of the Coast Guard’s ranks, according to Landry. Even today, the number is just 13 percent. Of 44 Coast Guard admirals, four are women, said Lt. Suzanne Kerver, a spokeswoman for the Guard in New Orleans. “Back then, it could be socially isolating to be a female officer in the Coast Guard,” Landry said during an interview from her 13th-story office, which looks out onto New Orleans’ business district and the beginning of historic St. Charles Avenue. She soon met her husband, Mark Landry, who was a Coast Guard captain until his retirement in 2008. They have two children: Michael, their 25-year-old son, is a civil engineer and Katelyn, their 20-year-old daughter, plays on the ice hockey team at Brown University. Landry was named the first female commander of the Eighth District last year. She’s the fourth woman to command a district in Coast Guard history, according to Kerver. ‘Impressive Persona’ “She has an impressive persona,” says Captain Patrick Little, commander of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Center in Washington, who has worked with Landry on two oil spills. One of them took place in 2003, when a barge struck rocks near Westport, Massachusetts, releasing about 98,000 gallons of fuel oil into Buzzards Bay. Landry, who commanded the Guard’s regional Marine Safety Office at the time, took charge of the cleanup for five months. That spill was less than 1 percent of the amount that has leaked so far in the Gulf. Landry says her basic approach hasn’t changed: Focus as much as possible on what can be done, rather than on what hasn’t been. “Folks are worried enough about this as it is,” she said. “We have to act as a buffer to absorb some of the shock.” To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Elgin in San Francisco at belgin@bloomberg.net
