Obama, Thad Allen, Bobby JindalRobert Gibbs briefed the press on the way back to D.C. from Louisiana:
MR. GIBBS: So to give you -- chart you guys through a little bit about what they saw, where they went. So this lacks a little perspective of a little bit broader -- but if you look at Louisiana, where we are is that fingertip out, right, is -- Venice is where the helicopters took off from -- right? So they went 15 miles due east right to the edge of the coast, and then went -- basically turned back and made a straight beeline up the coast, and that takes you back to the airport in New Orleans. And in some ways it follows a little bit the road that we took down.
But obviously from the aerial perspective -- the President said you could get a real sense of several things -- just the intricate nature of the coastline that you're dealing with, the fact that you could see from the air the year-by-year decimation of these coastal areas. We heard a lot about this in the meeting, which was that a lot of these places have receded because of damage that's been done. So not only do you have the economics of some of the most -- as the fishermen told the President -- some of the most important estuaries in our country, but you also have -- obviously these marshes represent the physical barrier that protects the greater part of Louisiana, particularly New Orleans, from bigger storms and hurricanes.
So that's a sense of what they saw in the helicopter. On the ride were Thad Allen, Governor Jindal, and John Brennan, along with the President.
Q They saw no sign of the actual slick, then?
MR. GIBBS: No. The winds were -- one of the reasons that we -- well, the reason that-- we had four helicopters -- the visibility and the winds were such that there was a genuine concern that we'd have to go from visual to instrumentation flying. That makes them a little nervous to have four helicopters out there doing instruments, which is why we pealed off quickly. And the winds just did not allow them to get out.
Now, obviously that's part of what is complicating some of the booming and some of the response, but at the same time, has kept some of the oil away as well. So the weather is, I would say, on the whole, has not been helpful to the recovery, though.
Q Robert, did the President see any marshland or coastal area that -- where the slick had reached?
MR. GIBBS: Not that I'm aware of, no.
Q His reaction?
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I mean, you got a real sense of, as he said, what's at stake both economically for the millions of dollars that are made off of fishing in these areas, but also the potential environmental devastation in the further decimation of these precious wetlands.
And we talked a lot about -- in the meeting with the larger group before the press statement -- in once that -- they're obviously setting up and making some preparations in the parish for how to deal with different aspects of the slick as it comes. And they talked about how genuinely hard it is to clean this up once it gets into some of these areas. So I think the President got a real firsthand look at the geography of what we are dealing with.
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