CBS Releases Extended Video With Mike Williams, Head Electronics Tech On Board Deepwater Horizon Rig

Regular viewers of this blog know that a few days ago I posted "CBS' 60 Minutes: "Deepwater Horizon's Blowout" ...Parts 1 & 2 . . . Plus 7 Extra Parts."

This was a fascinating interview of Mike Williams, an electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon, who painstakingly takes us through the many safety breaches committed by BP. Mike also rivets our attention with his crystal clear memory of what was going on right as gas shot up the pipe, sent the generators for electricity into over drive, and blew out the light bulbs in the ceiling and blew out the screens of his computer monitors. From there, his description of not one, but two 4 inch thick steel safety doors blowing off their big stainless steel hinges and hiting him full on, driving him 35 feet across a room into a wall, just makes this story the most unbelievable survival epic of all time.

Mike had to survive more than two seperate steel doors blasting him, he also tells how he ran to the bridge, confronted the captain that all was lost on his side of the rig, and how he missed three lifeboats which dropped to the ocean floor below without him and two other survivors. What takes place next must be heard in this interview.

That Mike Williams is alive is probably one of the biggest survival stories of all time. That Mike can come back and point his unwavering finger and dead on look into a camera and tell you how many times and how BP disregarded the most basic safety rules will make your anger boil.

Well, with all the videos posted in that last link, we've got a new "extended" 60 minutes video which leaves out some of the "extras" from my last link on Mike's story, but which adds new details.


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For instance in this new video, we learn when Mike got to the bridge where the captain was situated, there were more than a dozen survivors up there. Not only this, in this new video, we learn how an injured and very dazed and confused BP exec had to be prodded to try and push buttons to stop the flow of oil. The BP guy took a minute looking at the breaker box, then he finally punched buttons which should have stopped the flow of oil with a cutoff. Watch Williams' face when he tells you how dumbfounded everyone was in the room when no cutoffs worked.

This is damning evidence that unregulated Capitalism always works in the best interest of consumers. With the Louisiana shoreline being turned into oil covered muck zone, anyone with a conscience knows this is turning into the biggest environmental disaster of all time. May BP pay mightily for its sins!

Watch this latest "extended" video and shake your head at how one major company could have avoided this catastrophe by adhering to common sense safety rules. More unbelievable is how Mike Williams survived hell on earth and is now here to indict pigheaded Capitalists who put profits way ahead of safety.