Despite plan, no fire booms on hand UPDATED

More damning evidence of the botched response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  Mobile Register reporter Ben Raines has been covering this unfolding disaster since the explosion, fire and sinking of the Transocean mobile drilling unit late last month.  In today's news, Raines reports that, despite a well-developed and tested plan, officials didn't have a single fire boom on hand at the time of the spill:

---

But in order to conduct a successful test burn eight days after the Deepwater Horizon well began releasing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf, officials had to purchase one from a company in Illinois.

When federal officials called, Elastec/American Marine, shipped the only boom it had in stock, Jeff Bohleber, chief financial officer for Elastec, said today.

At federal officials' behest, the company began calling customers in other countries and asking if the U.S. government could borrow their fire booms for a few days, he said.

---

WTF? You have a plan in place since 1994, you have a tried and true process for executing it, and you're just thinking about getting the equipment you need a week after the event? Who was in charge?

Remember the "test burn" federal officials first talked about eight days after the well began spewing oil? Well, since they didn't even have a single piece of the boom on hand, and since their source had only one boom in stock, it pretty much means that a "test burn" was all they could do.

In the days after the Deepwater Horizon sank, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said that the response team had all the assets and equipment it needed. We now know that this was a false statement.

We also know, from interviews Raines conducted with Ron Gouget, former NOAA response coordinator, and Mr. Bohleber linked in the story above, that the Obama regime's claims that the in-situ burn procedure serves as a "last resort" are false.

Extra Point: That is, unless you don't have the equipment. Then it's pretty much a last resort, ain't it?

UPDATE: Well, well, well.  Via Jammie Wearing Fool, guess who received the most money from British Petroleum in the 2008 election cycle?