Living on the Alabama Gulf Coast, I and everyone I know are holding our collective breath to see what actually happens. The landfall prediction keeps getting adjusted and no one really knows, because of the weather and tides and Gulf Stream action, etc.
I for one am glad that despite the blame game being played, BP has "manned up" and announced that they will compensate anyone who suffers an actual loss from this disaster. Regardless of whose fault it is, BP is liable. They have admitted it and "the annointed one" has announced it publicly when he came down from DC the other day.
The real bitch is, we have all known of this risk for more than 30 years and by god someone (oil companies) should have sunk some of their billions in profits into REAL FUCKING FAILSAFES on these deep-water wells. With mile-deep locations, you can't just send down a team to repair something like this. Remote shutoffs with triple redundancy and manual overrides seems like a good place to start.
Even if it costs a million per well to implement, I think that is perfectly reasonable for them to spend. I don't mind spending an extra buck or two at the pump if it means I don't have to get my shrimp from fucking China!
(BTW, About half a dozen dead sea turtles have washed up on the beaches in the last few days near here, but none of them were oil-afflicted at all. Could be something much more widespread, will wait to see. It is nesting season for them so they are even more at risk for everything.)