Gulf Oil Spill: BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Fire First Responders Testify

Robb, civilian search and rescue specialist attached to Louisiana's central Coast Guard station, details the steps Coast Guard search ad rescue crews took to evacuate crew Deepwater Horizon's surviving crew.

Because it was immediately apparent the rig explosions and fire operation would generate significant media interest, Robb and others on duty that night had to follow predetermined Coast Guard protocols.

A portion of the transcript of Robb's testimony before the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) follows.

JIT: If we could move on

to the events of April 20, 2010. Could you

please tell us where you were stationed on

that date?

Robb: At the Coast Guard Command Center,

District 8.

JIT: Were your duties on that particular

date as you've described for us here today?

Robb: I had a 12-hour work day; got home probably

about 7 p.m. I was not on watch that night,

but sometime between 10:20 and 10:30 that

evening I was called by the operational duty

officer up there, Curtis Andrews, and he

requested if I could come in as quickly as

possible, that they had an unfolding event

that gave the appearance of a mass rescue

operation coming into play.

JIT: Do you recall approximately what time

that was?

Robb: I arrived at the Command Center

at roughly 11:15 p.m.

JIT: When you arrived at the Command

Center, what information was made available to

you concerning the ongoing situation?

Robb: Well, there was a quick verbal brief

by the controllers on duty, but they obviously

were very engaged in the rescue effort at the

time. So I read myself in as much as I

possibly could as to the case. I did not

relieve anybody. I augmented the watch. Once

I felt reasonably comfortable with what was

going on, I proceeded to a work station and

proceeded to augment the watch for the rest of

the evening.

JIT: Do you recall what the initial

notification was pertaining to this event,

sir?

Robb: Yes. It was -- our initial

notification was received over digital select

calling. It goes out on an HF frequency.

It's one-way communication. It's kind of

analogous to electronic paging and it goes out

in both certain vessels at sea or units on

land receive this notification. The hard

copy, we got a notification and it goes out

through satellite. It gives a position, the

name of the vessel, some call signs and then

nature of distress. This particular digital

select calling didn't give the nature of

distress, but by virtue of the way we received

the initial notification through digital

select calling, that automatically assigns the

District 8 Command Center as our mission

coordinator. That notification was augmented

almost immediately by a call from an offshore

platform indicated they could see a fire and

that there was a problem. And Sector Mobile,

shortly thereafter, also called and indicated

they had received a digital select calling.

JIT: Was this incident initially reported

as a mass rescue operation or some other

event?

Robb: I believe it was initially indicated

that there was a fire onboard a platform.

JIT: And is that distinction important?

Robb: It is regarding -- we have to drive

our initial response and the Coast Guard

protocol, a series of what's called quick

response cards. And initially -- from the

initial notification, this would have driven

the watch to proceed with offshore vessel fire

quick response card. But that switched over

rather quickly to a mass rescue operation.

That's a quick response card. As I indicated,

it is a general outline of initial actions and

protocol to be followed at the beginning of

the case.

JIT: Do you recall how quickly the switch

was made from the fire QRC to the mass rescue?

Robb: It was a matter of minutes from my

understanding because when I received a call

from Curtis Andrews at about 10:20, he was

already indicating on the phone it was a mass

rescue operation.

JIT: Okay, sir. Could you briefly

describe for the board the QRCs and how

they're developed for the various types of

incidents?

Robb: The Quick Response Cards, there are

what is called a program manager for each of

those Quick Response Cards and it basically is

the responsibility of the individual

department chief to develop the protocol and

the notifications in that Quick Response Card

that follows suit. They're multi mission in

nature. We have well over a hundred of those

cards up there and they drive individual

instances. For this particular instance,

because it was a search and rescue effort,

that Quick Response Card would have been under

the authority of the District Chief of

Response.

JIT: Thank you. After initially assessing

the situations, what actions did you take?

Robb: When I sat down, I started to make --

I contacted the Air Stations to ensure that

they understood the nature of this accident

and were in the process of bringing in extra

crews and giving them more of a, not so much

initial response, but ongoing response to make

sure they were onboard with the nature of this

incident wasn't going to be over very quickly.

Air Station New Orleans was incredibly

responsive. They were already in the process

of bringing in crews to accommodate the nature

of the accident.

Also, much of what I tried to do was to

alleviate what would be extraneous aspect of

things that go on in a Command Center so that

the watchstanders on duty could focus solely

on this particular incident. It isn't the

only incident that's going on at the time up

there. There are -- the district is rather

large so there are other situations going on

and I told the watchstanders if another search

and rescue case came up or another incident,

that I would go ahead and take the lead on

that to keep the pressure off them.

I also knew that -- well, based on that, I

also directed the law enforcement duty officer

to come in and spend the evening with us so in

case we had a law enforcement case, such as a

fisheries violation or something of some

degree of normalcy, we could pass that on to

him immediately and keep the pressure off the

watchstanders.

I also had the duty public affairs

officers officer called in. In anticipation,

obviously this would be -- the media would be

very interested. There would be a high media

interest and their aspect of the job is to

coordinate press releases and work with the

media to try and get the information out and

that helps us because it precludes us from

having to take those phone calls. We can

shift those over.

I was also concerned about the risk

management of the responders. That's an

important aspect of what we do. And this

obviously was an accident that had some

inherent risks to the people responding.

There was an ongoing fire. It was -- the

initial operation was conducted at night. So

I determined rather quickly that we needed to

establish a temporary flight restriction

around the area of activity for the aviation

community. So I contacted the FAA and

coordinated that aspect and the FAA was able

to obtain a temporary flight restriction five

miles around the platform up to 4,000 feet.

And what that does for risk management, it

gives us the authority to prevent aircraft not

directly associated in the response from

entering that air space. When that happens,

the aviators have to turn their attention from

looking for the people we were trying to find

to deconflicting the air space so they don't

run into each other.

So you can imagine

that's a good thing. And we maintained that

temporary flight restriction throughout the

duration of the search all the way to Friday.

I also contacted, knowing that area, after

first light, there were going to be a number

of helicopters in the area doing their normal

oil industry support activity.

So I contacted the dispatch at Petroleum Helicopters and a

couple others to remind them that this

temporary flight restriction was in place and

to make sure that they got a notice to airmen

out to their helicopter pilots so they could

adjust their flight pattern to avoid that

area.

After that, our Chief of Staff was in

that evening, also, Captain Tunstall, and we

had several conversations regarding insuring

the Marine Safety Unit at Morgan City and

Sector New Orleans put the investigating

officers on scene in anticipation of the

follow-up, which goes on after a case like

this to try and determine exactly what we're

determining here. For obvious reasons, we

weren't able to take any action on that other

than standby because the fire precluded any

activity such as that.

I also coordinated the ambulance activity.

Once we brought in any potential injured

people, and I decided the best thing to do

there was take it to Air Station New Orleans,

and then go from there. The rationale being

while there were a couple of hospitals closer

to the incident, I was worried about them

being overwhelmed and if we dropped a patient

off at that hospital, forcing them to take

another hour to hour and a half drive to a

facility that could accommodate their

injuries.

So the aircraft went to Air Station

New Orleans. I had seven ambulances awaiting

at the Coast Guard Air Station to take on

people that came in there. There were

critically injured personnel and those people,

for the most part, were medevac by Cougar

Helicopter, which was incredibly responsive

that evening. They have a couple of large

Sikorsky helicopters, very experienced pilots,

and paramedic in the back. So once the triage

began and the triage began on the offshore

vessel.

We put rescue swimmers and a flight

surgeon from the Aviation Training Center in

Mobile onboard that vessel to line up who

needed to be medevaced based on their

injuries. That seemed to work real well.

Cougar Helicopter brought in one set of

injured. I believe it was two, and they

determined during the course of their flight

rather than to take them directly to Air

Station New Orleans, the nature of their

injury was such, they went directly to West

Jefferson Hospital.

I had already given the

hospital a heads-up that there was a potential

for injured people coming in from this

accident. Cougar Helicopters also medivaced,

I believe it was seven people, to University

Hospital in Mobile. Five of those individuals

had been determined to be critically injured,

a variation of burns. There are also some

people that had suffered back injuries and

some neck injuries.

So that process was taking place. I was coordinating insuring

everybody was on a common frequency and that's

the arrangement we established for bringing in

the injured.