Chapter 5
Slippery When Wet
The wreck of the Oilstar Zoroaster lay like a corpse on the Golden Gate Bridge’s south tower, canting downward at a drunken angle. On the span above, cars crawled by as people craned their necks to gawk.
Coast Guard boats, Oilstar barges, and private fishing boats descended like vultures to begin massive lightering operations. Riding choppy waves beside the Zoroaster, a smaller tanker—the Tiberius—lashed up to the hulk. Straining pumps attempted to pull crude from Zoroaster faster than it could leak into the Bay.
As its cargo holds emptied, the wrecked supertanker rode higher in the water. Pumps replaced ballast with Bay water to keep the Zoroaster from floating up and losing its precarious balance.
Hung up on the Bridge’s south pier, the Zoroaster had been ripped by the same submerged ledge the steamer Rio de Janeiro had struck a century earlier; the Rio had dragged over half of its passengers and crew to the bottom, and now the Zoroaster rested against the same ledge, groaning against the six-knot ebb tide.
Standing on the deck of the Zoroaster, Todd Severyn jammed a broad, aching shoulder under one of the massive transfer hoses cast across from the smaller Tiberius. Other men from his lightering crew fought with the hoses, hoisting them over the deck rails and swinging the hose derrick to align them with cargo hatches. Todd tried to bellow orders, do at least as much work as his best man, and keep from puking all at the same time.
Todd planted his big feet on the slick deck, keeping a delicate balance with his heavy work boots. The stinging hydrocarbon fumes burned his eyes, his nose, as volatile petrochemicals roiled into the air. But the slant and rocking motion of the wreck in the choppy sea nauseated a Wyoming man like Todd more than the smell of crude.
He had worked oil for most of his life, getting his start in the oil-shale processing plants near Rock Springs, before Oilstar had sent him to Kuwait, Burma, Alaska, the North Sea. They had assigned him to an offshore rig off New Orleans for his first big job—but he had never before been in charge of a hellish job like offloading the Zoroaster.
“Come on, kids!” he shouted into the noise of the pumps, the wind, the gurgling oil far below. His throat was raw from yelling, and his crew staggered about in exhaustion mixed with panic. Overhead, helicopters bearing TV station logos circled to get dramatic footage. Spectators looked through the crisscrossed superstructure of the Golden Gate Bridge. It felt like a three-ring circus; Todd wished he were back in Wyoming. The last time he had taken off by himself with nothing more than a horse, mess kit, and bedroll on the plains seemed like a million years ago. Well, a few months at least. But it sure beat this crappy work.
Out on the water, absorbent booms along the greatest concentration of floating oil filled up and clogged. Skimmers tried to draw in the oil but lost ground quickly in the face of the gushing flow. Cleanup tugs struggled to deploy nylon containment booms, long draperies that hung under the water, lassoing the oil for pickup by recovery boats. A barge anchored near Alcatraz Island received the recovered oil from containment vessels. Privately owned fishing boats and small pleasure craft made an effort, scooping five-gallon buckets of foul-smelling crude directly from the surface.
At the stern of the Zoroaster, the wall of the four-story deckhouse admonished in large, mocking letters: NO SMOKING, PREVENT ACCIDENTS, and SAFETY FIRST.
Todd worked with three men to clamp the transfer hose into the hatch of cargo hold 7. He moved in a barely controlled frenzy like the rest of his team, and they ended up getting in each other’s way. The clamorous racket, the foul fumes, and the treacherous deck made conditions worse.
Todd pulled a wrench from a deep pocket on his greasy slicker and tightened the seal. “Start the pumps!” he yelled, raising a gloved hand.
Farther up the deck, the Oilstar helicopter pilot waved an acknowledgement, then spoke into the chopper’s radio. A few moments later, the hose shuddered as Tiberius started another pump. More crude began to flow out of the Zoroaster’s hold.
Todd stumbled to the deck rail. The weather slicker hid much of his big-boned frame, but he had managed to smear oil over his craggy face and brown hair. He coughed and spat over the rail.
Below, brownish-black oil continued to bubble out of the torn hull like a vile potion in a cauldron. The oil lay two feet thick on top of the water. If it was up to him, he’d just as soon toss the tanker captain overboard into the mess; the idiot should have at least gone down with his ship, like a real captain, after causing a disaster like this.
With the outgoing tide and turbulent weather, there was a very good chance the Zoroaster would slip off and plunge into the deep channel. If that happened, the tanker would drag with it the 800,000 barrels of oil still on board. Its cargo holds would leak into the Bay for years.
But Todd had a job to do, and he would bust his back cheeks to accomplish it. He couldn’t turn back the clock and prevent the wreck from happening. He had to turn off his disgust at seeing the massive damage grow worse every second. The whole dang world was watching, but he had to focus on the job at hand. Keep cool. There would be time to get pissed later—get good and drunk, maybe even look up that captain and kick some butt. While other people spent all their time yakking and complaining, Todd Severyn waded in and started doing something about it.
He yanked off his thick gloves, stuffed them in his pocket, and reached inside his slicker. Hauling out his walkie-talkie, he clicked the channel to his counterpart over on the Tiberius. “Glenn! Give me an update. How much have we offloaded so far?”
The radio crackled after only a moment’s pause. “Close to fifty thousand barrels. Pretty good for a day’s work—”
Todd scowled. “Darn it, that’s only a few percent of what’s still inside.”
He heard shouting in the background of the Tiberius. Glenn snapped back, “Then shut up and keep pumping! We’re doing everything we can.”
The transfer hoses had been pumping for less than fifteen minutes, throbbing as they sucked barrel after barrel out of the Zoroaster’s holds—when the wind picked up. Todd froze, wondering what else could go wrong. Lightering operations were tough under good conditions, but now the sea grew rougher. The fog had cleared, but the sky turned gray like a smoke pudding.
The deck began to creak, and the ship suddenly lurched to the side, increasing the slant.
Todd scrambled to grab the rail as panic welled up in him. He heard the other six men on the tanker shouting. He hated to leave a job unfinished, hated to run away when conditions got worse—but he wasn’t stupid. He knew when to make the call. He pressed the TALK button on his walkie-talkie. “Getting unstable, Glenn. Start thinking about closing up shop.” He looked at his watch. It was getting close to high tide, the greatest danger, when the supertanker rode highest on its unsteady balance against the bridge pier.
The Tiberius responded. “They’re going to crucify us if we abandon this puppy, Severyn. She’s still gushing thousands of gallons a minute.”
Todd wanted to smash the walkie-talkie on the deck. “If the Zoroaster goes down, none of my people are gonna be on it. I’m ordering the chopper to start shuttling people back over to you.”
“We’d better check with Oilstar—”
“It’s my call, and I’m making it.” If Emma Branson didn’t like it, she could come out of her high-and-mighty Oilstar office and do the work herself.
He switched off the walkie-talkie and raised a hand to get the attention of his crew. He pointed toward the helicopter, then held up four fingers. Seeing this, the first team of four broke away from their work and struggled up the slick, sloping deck toward the helicopter, which seemed about half a mile away. The pilot started the engine while waiting for them; two minutes later the blades began to rotate.
The walkie-talkie crackled. “Oilstar okays it, Severyn. But the minute the weather turns better, we come right back.”
Todd’s stomach twisted with the thought of how much oil still remained in the unbreached cargo holds. He shouted as the wind picked up again, “After the chopper takes the first load of my people over, we’ll unlash the two ships. Stop pumping from cargo hold 3. We’ll disconnect right now. Three of us will stay here to get the transfer hose ready when it’s time.”
He turned to see the four men clamber aboard the helicopter. The blades became a blur, and the craft lurched from the deck, heading toward the adjacent Tiberius.
As Todd watched the copter land on the other tanker, the Zoroaster groaned under his feet, listing and settling deeper. He fell back against a metal supply shack mounted to the deck. Keep cool, he reminded himself, but the thought of the tanker sliding off the submerged ledge and plunging to the bottom filled him with terror, which he attempted to smother in front of his men.
Jimmy Mack, a wide-eyed kid just days with the company, started yelling about stupid risks. Todd staggered over to help him disconnect the transfer hose from cargo hold 3. “I keep my word—no one’s going down with this ship!” He bent over and used his wrench on the transfer hose connection.
Two men detached the hose from the hold and hauled it toward the deck rail. Black oil gushed from the end, splattering the deck. Todd radioed for the Tiberius to shut off the pumps to cargo holds 7 and 8. “Start unlashing the ships,” he said. The words sounded like failure to him, and it made him angry. “Get ready to disengage these other hoses.”
On the deck of the smaller tanker, the helicopter lifted off and began its journey back. Working two men at a time, Todd and his companions threw off the heavy hooks securing the Zoroaster to the Tiberius. The thumping vibrations of the helicopter grew louder as it approached the supertanker’s landing pad.
“Disconnect those hoses,” Todd shouted. “Move it!”
With a large swell, the Zoroaster lurched, tumbling them backward into the water cannons. Todd smashed his elbow against a large red pipe, but managed to grab the rail of a foam-monitor station. Everything was going wrong. Todd felt as if he were standing in the path of an avalanche. One of the men smacked his helmet on a release valve, and water began to spray from a nozzle.
No longer lashed together, the two tankers drifted apart by a few more feet.
The transfer hose at cargo hold 7 sheared away, spraying oil in all directions. With a loud pop, the hose connected to cargo hold 8 tore off. The Zoroaster began to tilt sideways, away from Tiberius.
“She’s going down!” Todd shouted. For just a moment he wanted to run in blind panic to the empty chopper pad, but he had to get his crew off. He shoved Jimmy Mack toward the landing platform. “Go! Now!”
“Yes, sir!”
All three men began a scramble for the helicopter pad near the stern deck. They were covered with petroleum slime, the rough metal deck plates were slick with crude. Jimmy Mack tumbled to his knees, disoriented with panic. Todd reached out a big hand and helped him up. “I told you I keep my word!”
The helicopter came in and tried to land, but the Zoroaster tilted fast. Todd grabbed a rail to keep his balance. Just as the second team of three made it to the landing circle, the copter rose up and circled back around, leaving Todd and the two others to scream for it to come back. The tanker lurched again.
Over the side of the ship, the black petroleum looked like a vile quagmire, bubbling like lava. Fumes burned Todd’s face and eyes like acid. He couldn’t imagine a death worse than drowning in several feet of crude oil.
The helicopter wheeled overhead and landed with a skid, bouncing across the deck. Without waiting for the rotors to slow, Todd and the others ducked their heads and scrambled to the open door. They tumbled into the back in an oil-stained pile of bodies. The last one on, Todd still hung halfway out of the hatch as the copter took off. “Yeeee-hah!”
The pilot flew without speaking, his jaw clenched, as they lifted up and away from the Zoroaster’s tilting superstructure. Todd struggled to a better position to watch through the scratched Plexiglas cockpit window.
Below, the Tiberius pulled away from the sinking Zoroaster. Sliding down, rolling sideways as it lost its slippery grip on the Fort Point ledge, the Zoroaster toppled in a slow-motion avalanche. Todd’s stomach sank with it. Water and oil foamed gray in the churning violence of the plunge. The supertanker’s hull yawned open wider, geysering black crude into the waters.
Before his eyes, the disaster became a thousand times worse.
Despite the desperate lightering operations, nearly 50 million gallons of crude oil remained in the breached cargo holds. Cold, dark water swallowed the doomed supertanker in less than fifteen minutes.
Todd watched, sick with disgust. From inside the Zoroaster, oil would continue to gush upward for years … and now there was no way to stop it.
***