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Thick, black oil and churning natural gas rose to the surface,
enveloping Platform A in a bubbling cauldron. But two and a half
hours after the accident, Union Oil assured the Coast Guard that
everything was fine and that it didn’t need help. As work continued
on Platform A to stop the leaks, word went out to company officials.
Meanwhile, a few miles away, thousands of Santa Barbara residents
remained unaware of the accident.

WORD LEAKS OUT
On Wednesday morning, a crew aboard a Coast Guard helicopter
learned the full scale of the disaster. Miles of ocean lay under a blanket
of oil. The crew on the platform worked to reconnect the pipe so they
could pump in more drilling mud, and crews at sea dropped detergent
to break up the slick. Union Oil flew in cleanup equipment from Texas
oil fields.
At the Santa Barbara News-Press, reporter Bob Sollen received an
alarming anonymous phone call. A voice at the other end of the line
said, “The ocean is boiling around Platform A.” Though Sollen pressed
the caller for more details, the voice simply repeated, “The ocean is
boiling around Platform A. Goodbye.”
By noon on January 29, Union Oil officially notified local officials
of the spill. On the news, the company assured the public that there
“was nothing to worry about. Everything was under control.” The
reality was far grimmer—upwards of five thousand barrels, or 210,000
gallons (794,936 L) a day, poured into the ocean.
Initially, calm winds kept the slick out at sea; all residents could do
was watch and wait. On Wednesday, they waited. On Thursday, they
waited. Finally, on Friday, January 31, when the oil slick had grown to
323 square miles (837 sq. km) and offshore winds died down, the first
drops of oil reached California beaches.
Over the next days, the thick, black slick crept along miles and
miles of shoreline. It engulfed offshore islands and choked off Santa

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