Four presumed dead following helicopter crash in the Gulf of Mexico.

The US Coast Guard has called off a search for survivors, following a helicopter crash in the Gulf of Mexico. The helicopter, operated by Rotorcraft Leasing, crashed while taking off from a Walter Oil & Gas owned offshore oil platform, about 16 km to the south of the mouth of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River, at about 8.40 am local time on Thursday 29 December 2022. It is reported to have struck the landing pad as it took off, and subsequently to have fallen into the water.

Debris from a helicopter crash on 29 December 2022 next to a Walter Oil & Gas owned offshore oil platform 16 km off the coast of Louisiana. US Coast Guard.

Following an extensive search by helicopter and small boat, which discovered debris from the crash but no signs of the missing pilot or three passengers, the search was called off at 6.15 pm the same day. One of the passengers has been named as David Scarborough (36), from Lizana, Mississippi, who was returning to shore following a two week shift on the oil platform. Scarborough is survived by his wife, Lacy, and a two-year-old son, Sawyer; the couple were expecting a second child in April. The other victims of the crash have not yet been named.

David Scarborough (36), from Lizana, Mississippi, believed to have died in a helicopter crash in the Gulf of Mexico on 29 December 2022. Lacy Scarborough/Sun Herald.

This is the second crash by a Rotocraft Leasing helicopter attended by the US Coast Guard within two weeks; the first incident happened on 15 December when a helicopter with three people on board went down 25 km off the coast of Terrebonne Bay, while attempting to land on an oil platform. On that occasion all three people on board were able to escape into an inflatable raft, and were subsequently airlifted to hospital with back injuries. 

The US Coast Guard also airlifted two workers from offshore oil vessels in the Gulf of Mexico to hospital in December, both also with back injuries, as well as dealing with two separate oil spill incidents.

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Divers looking for source of oil spill find broken pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico.

Divers searching for the source of an oil slick that appeared on the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Ida have found three broken pipelines on the seabed to the south of the city of New Orleans. The oil was first observed on Wednesday 1 September by an aerial survey caried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with additional footage being taken from a helicopter chartered by the Associated Press the next day. This prompted a clean-up operation by Talos Energy, who previously leased  Bay Marchand, Block 5, the area where the slick appeared, and Clean Gulf Associates,  a nonprofit oil-spill response cooperative hired by Talos to help with the operation. Now divers from Clean Gulf have identified a broken 30 cm diameter pipeline with oil leaking from it, plus two further broken 10 cm pipelines, which are not currently leaking, but which may have contributed to the spill. Talos Energy do not believe that these pipelines were part of their operation, as their records show all seabed pipelines operated by the company were removed when their activities ceased in 2017. If this is correct, then it is unclear who the pipelines belonged to.

 

Satellite image showing an oil slick to the south of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on 2 September 2021. Maxar Technologies/AP.

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday 29 August 2021, and bringing with it high winds and flooding which led to more than 50 deaths on the eastern United States.  However, the fact that the death toll was not much higher has been hailed as a vindication of the billions of dollars that have been invested in the levee system protecting the city of New Orleans following the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Katrina sixteen years ago. The city, which was directly in the path of the storm, suffered wind damage as it was battered by 240 km per hour winds, but only a limited amount of flooding. A plan to evacuate large parts of New Orleans in the event of it being hit by another major hurricane was not put into place because of the rapidity with which the storm formed, developing over the Caribbean Sea only four days before making landfall as the fifth largest storm ever to hit the US coast.

The storm also caused flooding at the Phillips 66 Alliance Refinery, which is beside the Mississippi River to the south of New Orleans, where a sheen has subsequently been observed on the water, implying that some leaking has occurred here to, although the refinery was shut down ahead of the storm, which should have prevented any major incident.

Tropical storms, known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, are caused by solar energy heating the air above the oceans, which causes the air to rise leading to an inrush of air. If this happens over a large enough area the inrushing air will start to circulate, as the rotation of the Earth causes the winds closer to the equator to move eastwards compared to those further away (the Coriolis Effect). This leads to tropical storms rotating clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere. These storms tend to grow in strength as they move across the ocean and lose it as they pass over land (this is not completely true: many tropical storms peter out without reaching land due to wider atmospheric patterns), since the land tends to absorb solar energy while the sea reflects it.

 

The formation of a tropical cyclone. Natural Disaster Management.

Despite the obvious danger of winds of this speed, which can physically blow people, and other large objects, away as well as damaging buildings and uprooting trees, the real danger from these storms comes from the flooding they bring. Each drop millibar drop in air-pressure leads to an approximate 1 cm rise in sea level, with big tropical storms capable of causing a storm surge of several meters. This is always accompanied by heavy rainfall, since warm air over the ocean leads to evaporation of sea water, which is then carried with the storm. These combined often lead to catastrophic flooding in areas hit by tropical storms.

 

The formation and impact of a storm surge. eSchoolToday.

Many officials in the US, including President Joe Biden, have linked Hurricane Ida directly to global warming, noting that the average storm hitting the US today does seven times as much damage as in the 1970s, that 'hundred year' storms now happen several times a decade, and that states formerly to the north of the hurricane zone are now regularly hit by these storms.

Oil spills are potentially harmful to marine life in a variety of ways. Most obviously it can coat the outside of organisms, causing damage to external structures such as the feathers of Birds and fur of Mammals, as well as smothering many marine invertebrates and plants. It also contains a variety of chemicals which can be directly toxic upset the hormonal balance of many animals. Oil also impedes the feeding of marine organisms, coating both food and feeding organs, but provides an excellent food source for Bacteria, which can lead to Eutrophication events - dramatic increases in Bacteria numbers, which then use all the oxygen in the water, leading other organisms to asphyxiate.

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More than fifty dead as Hurricane Ida batters the American east coast.

More than fifty people have now died in the US in incidents linked to Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday 29 August 2021. The majority of the deaths occurred in northeastern states, which historically have not suffered many such events and were poorly prepared, with the highest number of deaths was recorded in New Jersey, where at least 23 people have died, mostly of drowning after becoming trapped in cars or flooded apartments, although the state was hit by at least one tornado generated by the hurricane, which is reported to have destroyed its largest dairy farm. 

 

Flooding in Manville, New Jersey, on Thursday 2 September 2021. Andrew Mills/NJ Advance Media.

At least fourteen people, including a two year old boy, have lost their lives in New York City, with eleven victims confirmed to have drowned after becoming trapped in flooded basements. The city was forced to temporarily close its streets to non-emergency vehicles to enable rescue work to be carried out, the subway network was closed due to flooding, and thousands of homes were left without power. 80 mm of rain fell in an hour in Central Park, surpassing a previous record of 49 mm, set only a month ago by another tropical storm that hit the city.

 

Flooding in New York linked to Hurricane Ida. AP.

Nine people are reported to have died in storm-related events in Louisiana, including at least one person who drowned, and three who died of carbon monoxide poisoning. However, the fact that the death toll was not much higher has been hailed as a vindication of the billions of dollars that have been invested in the leve system protecting the city of New Orleans following the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Katrina sixteen years ago. The city, which was directly in the path of the storm, suffered wind damage as it was battered by 240 km per hour winds, but only a limited amount of flooding. A plan to evacuate large parts of New Orleans in the event of it being hit by another major hurricane was not put into place because of the rapidity with which the storm formed, developing over the Caribbean Sea only four days before making landfall as the fifth largest storm ever to hit the US coast.

 

Buildings demolished by high winds as Hurricane Ida swept over New Orleans. Brandon Bell/Getty Images.

Elsewhere, at least five people have died in Pennsylvania, two each in Mississippi and Alabama, and one death each in Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia. Many officials in the US, including President Joe Biden, have linked the storm directly to global warming, noting that the average storm hitting the US today does seven times as much damage as in the 1970s, that 'hundred year' storms now happen several times a decade, and that states formerly to the north of the hurricane zone are now regularly hit by these storms.

 

Floodwaters in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, associated with Hurricane Ida. Pittsburgh Post Gazette/AP.

Tropical storms, known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, are caused by solar energy heating the air above the oceans, which causes the air to rise leading to an inrush of air. If this happens over a large enough area the inrushing air will start to circulate, as the rotation of the Earth causes the winds closer to the equator to move eastwards compared to those further away (the Coriolis Effect). This leads to tropical storms rotating clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere. These storms tend to grow in strength as they move across the ocean and lose it as they pass over land (this is not completely true: many tropical storms peter out without reaching land due to wider atmospheric patterns), since the land tends to absorb solar energy while the sea reflects it.

 

The formation of a tropical cyclone. Natural Disaster Management.

Despite the obvious danger of winds of this speed, which can physically blow people, and other large objects, away as well as damaging buildings and uprooting trees, the real danger from these storms comes from the flooding they bring. Each drop millibar drop in air-pressure leads to an approximate 1 cm rise in sea level, with big tropical storms capable of causing a storm surge of several meters. This is always accompanied by heavy rainfall, since warm air over the ocean leads to evaporation of sea water, which is then carried with the storm. These combined often lead to catastrophic flooding in areas hit by tropical storms.

 

The formation and impact of a storm surge. eSchoolToday.

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Tornadoes and flooding kill at least seven in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

At least seven people have died and many more have been injured as tornadoes and severe storms swept across the southern United States on Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 April 2020. At least three people died and more than twenty were injured when a tornado hit the town of Onalaska in Polk County, Texas, destroying 46 houses and damaging 245 more. Two people died in the city of Madill in Marshall County, Oklahoma, which is reported to have suffered severe damage after being hit by a tornado. In Louisiana a man is reported to have died after falling into a drainage ditch in the city of Mansfield in DeSoto Parish, and a woman is reported to have died in a storm in the town of Lecompte in Rapids Parish. Elsewhere the city of Adel in Cook County, Georgia, is reported to have suffered damage to a number of properties after being hit by a tornado, as is the city of Tallahassee, in Leon County, Florida. In Alabama two emergency workers are reported to have been injured by a falling tree in the city of Anniston in Calhoun County, while attempting to rescue a homeowner trapped by an earlier treefall. Around 150 000 homes and businesses across the southern US are reported to be without electricity due to fallen power lines.

A tornado over the city of Madrill, Oklahoma, at about 5.00 pm local time on Wednesday 22 April 2020. NBC.

Tornadoes are formed by winds within large thunder storms called super cells. Supercells are large masses of warm water-laden air formed by hot weather over the sea, when they encounter winds at high altitudes the air within them begins to rotate. The air pressure will drop within these zones of rotation, causing the air within them so rise, sucking the air beneath them up into the storm, this creates a zone of rotating rising air that appears to extend downwards as it grows; when it hits the ground it is called a tornado.

Tornado damage in Woodworth, Louisiana. USA Today.

Tornadoes can occur anywhere in the world, but are most common, and most severe, in the area of the American mid-west known as 'Tornado Ally', running from Texas to Minnesota, which is fuelled by moist air currents from over the warm enclosed waters of the Gulf of Mexico interacting with cool fast moving jet stream winds from the Rocky Mountains. Many climatologists are concerned that rising temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico will lead to more frequent and more severe tornado events.

Simplified diagram of the air currents that contribute to tornado formation in Tornado Alley. Dan Craggs/Wikimedia Commons/NOAA.

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Three killed in tornado outbreak in southern United States.

Three people have died in an outbreak of tornadoes that swept across the US states of Alabama, Lousiana and Mississippi on Monday 16 December 2019. In Alabama two people were killed and several more people were injured when a tornado hit the town of Town Creek in Lawrence County' the two people who died are described as a couple, and one of the injured is reportedly their seven-year-old son, who is described as having critical injuries. Elsewhere in the state three more people were injured and two moble homes destroyed when a tornado hit the settlement of Salt Well in Marengo County. It Lousiana a 59-year-old woman, identified locally as Betty Patin, was killed when her mobile home was destroyed near Rosepine in Vernon Parish. In Mississippi seven people were injured when a home was destroyed in the town of Sumrall in Lamar County, and two people were injured by flying debris in Franklin County.

A tornado near Foxworth, in Marion County, Mississippi, at about 7.00 pm local time on Monday 16 December 2019. Jason Bedo/Twitter.

Tornadoes are formed by winds within large thunder storms called super cells. Supercells are large masses of warm water-laden air formed by hot weather over the sea, when they encounter winds at high altitudes the air within them begins to rotate. The air pressure will drop within these zones of rotation, causing the air within them so rise, sucking the air beneath them up into the storm, this creates a zone of rotating rising air that appears to extend downwards as it grows; when it hits the ground it is called a tornado.

Tornadoes can occur anywhere in the world, but are most common, and most severe, in the area of the American mid-west known as 'Tornado Ally', running from Texas to Minnisota, which is fuelled by moist air currents from over the warm enclosed waters of the Gulf of Mexico interacting with cool fast moving jet stream winds from the Rocky Mountains. Many climatologists are concerned that rising temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico will lead to more frequent and more severe tornado events.

 Simplified diagram of the air currents that contribute to tornado formation in Tornado Alley. Dan Craggs/Wikimedia Commons/NOAA.

However tornadoes are typically summer events, with occrences as late as December being exceptionally rare. It is possible that this week's storms are linked to a developing El Niño syste,, which can bring warmer, wetter air to the southerb US than is typical for the time of year.

The El Niño is the warm phase of a long-term climatic oscillation affecting the southern Pacific, which can influence the climate around the world. The onset of El Niño conditions is marked by a sharp rise in temperature and pressure over the southern Indian Ocean, which then moves eastward over the southern Pacific. This pulls rainfall with it, leading to higher rainfall over the Pacific and lower rainfall over South Asia. This reduced rainfall during the already hot and dry summer leads to soaring temperatures in southern Asia, followed by a rise in rainfall that often causes flooding in the Americas and sometimes Africa. Worryingly climatic predictions for the next century suggest that global warming could lead to more frequent and severe El Niño conditions, extreme weather conditions a common occurrence.

 Predicted changes to North American weather patterns during an El Niño event. NWS/NCEP Climate Prediction Center/NOAA.

  

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