The effort to contain and control the blowout of the Macondo well was unprecedented. From April 20, 2010, the day the well blew out, until September 19, 2010, when the government finally declared it "dead", BP expended enormous resources to develop and deploy new technologies that eventually captured a substantial amount of oil at the source and, after 87 days, stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP had to construct novel devices, and the government had to mobilize personnel on the fly, because neither was ready for a disaster of this nature in deepwater. This book examines the...