:Critical Hours:Deepwater Horizon: The Explosion, the Blowout, and the disaster that Changed Drilling Forever
About
On the evening of 20 April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was completing what should have been a routine operation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Within minutes, a chain of seemingly manageable failures became one of the worst industrial disasters in modern history.
An uncontrolled blowout.
Two devastating explosions.
Eleven men lost.
A drilling rig consumed by fire before sinking beneath the Gulf.
What followed was an eighty-seven-day struggle to stop a well lying more than 5,000 feet below the sea, while millions of barrels of oil escaped into one of the world’s richest marine environments.
Drawing upon official investigations, engineering reports and survivor accounts, award-winning author Bill Stewart reconstructs the critical hours that changed offshore drilling forever.
This is not simply the story of an explosion.
It is the story of warning signs overlooked, extraordinary acts of courage, remarkable engineering under impossible conditions and the lessons learned at an enormous human cost.
Written in the calm, documentary style readers have come to expect from the Critical Hours series, this book takes you from the final preparations aboard Deepwater Horizon through the blowout, the rescue, the months-long battle to seal the Macondo well and the reforms that reshaped offshore safety across the world.
Inside you’ll discover:
• The final hours before the blowout
• How the Macondo well failed
• The explosions and evacuation of Deepwater Horizon
• The heroic rescue of 115 survivors
• The eighty-seven-day engineering battle to stop the leak
• The investigation that transformed offshore drilling
• The lasting legacy of one of the world’s most significant industrial disasters
A powerful, meticulously researched account of courage, engineering and remembrance.
Because history is shaped during its Critical Hours