Oil Spill Clean up here in Fort Walton

Nearly 1,500 jobless workers had been hired to help cleaning up the beaches here in Florida. I've been doing so research on these workers and it's intreresting to read!! Here's a few inserts from the article I read...

-"The work is grueling and physical. Cleanup workers take on 12-hour shifts, either in the oppressively hot days or the cooler nights, clad in long pants and sneakers or steel-toed boots covered in yellow plastic that workers call ``chicken feet.''

-Some beachgoers have complained that workers spend too much time resting under blue tents along the beach and not enough time clearing the shoreline, but BP contractors say they follow federal regulations on how long workers can be exposed to the sun.

During the day, the heat index regularly climbs over 100 degrees, sometimes forcing workers to ``go black'' and only work for, say, 15 minutes at a time before taking a longer break to avoid overheating." 

We were wondering why they sat under tents more than they worked!! Turns out there was a good reason!! Also they can't work as well at night because they can't see the tarballs as well.

"A spotter looks for turtles and monitors worker safety. The crews wear fluorescent vests over T-shirts of different colors that mark their position and how many hours of training they've had: green for 8 hours, orange for 24 and white for 40."

We have seen all 3 colors out here working this week!

"Workers have to be careful not to scoop too much sand into six-millimeter-thick plastic bags known as drum liners that they fill up to 20 pounds and then seal off with duct tape. Inside the plastic bags, the mix of sand and oil resembles chocolate-chip cookie dough.

The bags are put in neat piles on the beach and eventually make it into a heavy-duty bin or rolloff truck. Some are carted to Alabama to be incinerated. Other waste is sent to the Springhill landfill in Campbellton, Fla., about 85 miles northwest of Tallahassee."

I was glad to see this because I had wondered where they were taking it.

Also BP is the one hiring all of these people to do this work. (At least they are doing something??) They have also hired many of the fishermen who are out of a job this year to take their boats back and forth across the water looking for oil. 

During our few days here we have seen clean-up crews working round-the-clock, and boats moving back and forth across the ocean... It's a beautiful effort, though it's sad that it is needed. The oil here is not devastating, it's just these tiny rock looking balls that feel like play-dough and stain your fingers and clothes if you touch them. They wash up on the shore with the sea-weed, and sea-shells and the workers are out cleaning it up as early as they can get out there. They have 2 buckets at the exit of the beach to wash off your feet in case you got oil on them. 

2 days ago my daddy got out there and helped the cleaners a bit. (No training necessary for Randy Pierson, haha) I got a couple of pictures, and educated myself on this little bit of history I am living through... Praying for the officials, our president, and everyone involved in making the important decisions surrounding this oil spill. We don't want this to happen again!!!

Daddy, and the clean-up crew he was working with, they weren't wearing their vests, but they had those yellow "chicken feet"

Net full of Tarballs

He was working so hard :)

Close up on the pieces we have been finding here on the beach