All across the United States, environmentally conscious citizens are breathing a sigh of relief as reports indicate that after 86 days, BP finally managed to figure out how to shut off the spew from hell.  In New Orleans (and likely elsewhere along the Gulf), homeowners like me have yet to exhale.  Even if the underwater oil geyser stays capped for good, we still have to live through hurricane season(s) with the knowledge that came to us this week via letter from our home insurance companies.  The letter was accompanied by a memo from FEMA offering a helpful explanation of how claims "might be handled" if submitted for damage caused by "oil mixed with floodwater."  

Oil mixed with floodwater, according to the FEMA memo, "is not new."  Unfortunately, it is also not contemplated very generously by home insurance companies.  Damage to soil, ground, plants?  Not covered.   Special clean-up methods required by state or local ordinance?  Not covered.  Damage to the home itself is covered up to the policy limit.  Everything else, the memo implies, is BP's problem.  Oh, and ours.

 The 2010 season is widely predicted to bring a record number of hurricanes.  The fact that FEMA and insurance companies have taken the threat of oily floods in New Orleans seriously enough to issue a memo preemptively limiting their liability is troublesome in and of itself.  The swirl of rumors regarding the disastrous aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion produced a lot of apocalyptic thinking, and I suppose I had hoped that Hurricane Oilpocalypse was merely one of hundreds of very unlikely scenarios conjured by our dreary imaginations.  Given that FEMA doesn't tend to plan too far ahead as far as New Orleans is concerned, this memo says to me that if a hurricane does cause flooding in the area, I may be begging BP for years to come for money to replace my befouled grass and trees.  I don't even want to think about what Louisiana farmers might be up against.  That is, if the Flood of Viscous Doom doesn't finish off  what Katrina started.  Heckuva job, BP. 

While I'm not quite breaking out the Korbel, don't get me wrong - I'm glad there's no more oil actively flowing into the Gulf.  I hope it stays that way.  But I also hope the country doesn't turn its back on the Gulf States once the immediacy of  the crisis has passed and the anxious wait begins.  We still have no idea how just how badly the oil already spilled will affect our environment and our industries in the years to come.   All of us are carrying around an intense anxiety for the future of the region, our jobs, our homes, our lives.  As long as BP's pollution stains the water, there will be no sighs of relief along the coast.