BP documents highlight PR strategy after deadly Texas blast

[sabra]

Source: CNN

Houston, Texas (CNN) -- In the hours after a 2005 refinery explosion that left 15 people dead, a BP executive suggested a holiday weekend and the national furor over a Florida woman's last days would eclipse the tragedy.

With the oil company now battling to save an image tarnished by the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the lawyer who found that e-mail among a mountain of BP documents says nothing appears to have changed.

"Their strategy is the same every time ... And it's always, first, damage control," Brent Coon told CNN. "And with damage control, they accentuate the positive, downplay the negative, tell everybody they're sorry, they're gonna fix it, they're gonna do better, and not to worry."

Coon represented many of the victims of the March 2005 explosion at BP's refinery in Texas City, near Houston. The blast killed 15 workers and injured 180, with many of the survivors suffering severe burns, amputations and broken bones.

...

Coon says the documents his law firm unearthed in the Texas City case showed BP employees warned that corners at the plant were being cut, and dangerous conditions were being ignored.

"Quit waiting for a known possible disaster to happen before correcting the problem," one worker wrote.

Another stated, "This company deliberately put my life in danger to try and save a buck."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/16/bp.refinery.reaction/

[Angry Dragon]

1. The execs need to be tried for murder

[Beavker]

2. Unfortunately, most of this country

The non DU'ers (and most Dems of course) care. Other than the families involved, we have too many Teabagging Republican's and misinformed and disconnected citizens of the great country to give a shit.

You'd think these guys would be done, and the Oil Industry would be reduced to a pitance.

But then again, I'm not a 'good American', so what do I know.

[HillbillyBob]

3. I guess we are not good amurikans either

We are starting an organic farm and weaning our house off of excess use of power by replacing things as they die with ultra efficient ones..we now save more on power than we use and are generally comfortable ..except we need to do something about shading the house in summer, I have already painted the roof white sealer that lowers inside temps by almost 30 degrees.

We are shooting for being nearly fossil fuel free in 10 yrs.

As for the gas operated equipment you need to run a farm even a small one I want to try to build wood gasifiers for them..I know we cannot be completely fossil fuel free, but our investment in efficiency over the last 3 yrs has cut our power bill/use by 3/4s and we are not sitting in the cold and dark. I think tho we are going to have to invest in a new heat pump, this one is about 18yrs and was not the most efficient one going at that time. It alone adds almost 250+ a month to use it for heat or cool so we use a small kero heater and take advantage of solar heat gain by opening the insulated curtains.