Shrimp boats off the coast of Venice, La., May 3, 2010. Photo by U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley.
Recent news suggests that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will soon be eclipsed by the millions of barrels of oil leaking from the Taylor Energy platform since 2004. The Coast Guard this week ordered Taylor to contain the mess, or face massive fines. But cleanup alone may not fully mitigate the damage and effects may linger, as they did after the Deepwater Horizon spill.
As CRGC director Melissa Finucane writes in NOLA.com, communities in the Gulf of Mexico are no strangers to coastal disasters. But overlapping disasters, like the Taylor and Deepwater Horizon spills, pose unique challenges.
Read related research by Finucane and colleagues: “Behavioral Health of Gulf Coast Residents 6 Years After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: The Role of Trauma History,” in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.