PDX2 Gulf Coast at Grand Isle

I ask the search and rescue team leader how bad the spill is, after he tells us he has worked on three other spills. “Monumental,” he says. I’m with a reporter from my hometown newspaper and he’s unsatisfied with the answer. He presses. The official speaks in gentle equivocations — it’s not his job to argue, it’s his job to get the media out to these places, to see what is the what and get the story to the public. Sure it’s controlled, but he doesn’t like a man whose tongue would be lashed. It is big and his body language says a lot. Monumental is a monumental word after all.

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