As a relatively innocuous storm at the time, Hurricane Katrina ambled across Florida into the Gulf of Mexico. Once in the Gulf, however, Katrina ballooned into a monster by the time her eye crossed land, east of New Orleans. The result appears to have been one of the great natural disasters in American history.

Katrina's path across the Gulf of Mexico led through the center of the offshore oil patch. Final landfall then severely disrupted the nation's busiest port as well as one of the more important onshore gas and oil processing and refining areas in North America.

The extraordinary level of interest in Katrina and related matters has led us to share some intriguing observations about the experiences of people who work within the offshore oil and gas industry based in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the dangers they face. These come to us from our friend, "Bill." (For the sake of modesty and another reason or two, he has asked that we not use his last name.)

A native of Mississippi, Bill is an engineering consultant to the offshore oil and gas industry. His more than thirty years of experience drilling wells in the Gulf of Mexico, thus gives him a unique perspective on Katrina-related and similar events. He recently shared a few of his experiences regarding how the volatile hurricane season in the Gulf affects the people and businesses within the offshore oil patch. Not only is this piece very interesting, it also is quite informative. Continue to Gillespie Research for the balance of the essay: http://www.gillespieresearch.com/cgi-bin/s/article/id=655