Deja Vu in the Gulf
VELSHI: All right. My producers tell me that is Kill Devil Hills. That's where -- we know that because that's the deck on which Rob Marciano was standing. I wouldn't mind an update from my producers as to where Rob Marciano is, but I believe this guy is experienced. He's done a lot of these hurricanes. He's safe. He's probably in the truck or something like that. That's the spot he was at moments ago. He said it was like needles hitting him in the face. That is Kill Devil Hills. That rain is going sideways there, everybody taking shelter. Although the mayor was telling us, about 35,000 people, residents, permanent residents, have stayed. He said most of tourists well gone from the place. And what they're hoping is once this thing passes, that maybe there will be an opportunity to salvage some of the Labor Day holiday. This place really depends on tourists over the summer. More on Hurricane Earl is just ahead. We've got the Most News in the Morning here. But, first, we want to turn to a developing story in the Gulf of Mexico. This is amazing. Nobody could believe this had happened. There's been another explosion, another oil rig fire. This time, though, no deaths. All 13 crew members escaped. And the Coast Guard says there is no leaking oil. Let's bring in Don Van Nieuwenhuise. He's a professor of petroleum geoscience at the University of Houston. He will be a familiar face to many of us. Don, many people have seen you unfortunately over the last few months because you have been helping us understand what happened in the Gulf of Mexico with that massive BP oil spill. You heard about this yesterday. What went through your mind?</s>DON VAN NIEUWENHUISE, PROFESSOR OF PETROLEUM GEOSCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON: Well, first of all, just like everyone else, I think, I was very concerned that this could be another serious disaster. But very quickly, I learned that this is a different situation. We don't have a well that's out of control. When you have a well that's out of control, it's a lot worse. All the wellheads that they had, the seven active producing wells, were secured properly. All the safety control valves worked. And as we were able to see later in the day, the fire was put out quickly, and all of the 13 people that were on the ship, on the vessel, were able to get off safely and without injury.</s>VELSHI: Don, this is a platform, a production platform that has a number of wells attached to it. There were talks about natural gas and oil, and a number of people asked me, well, how is it either natural gas or oil?</s>VAN NIEUWENHUISE: Well, most oil wells have natural gas with them. So, that's why there can be more than one. And they probably have a couple of reservoir units that they're producing that are 100 percent gas. Some will be mostly oil but part of that will have gas in it. So, in all cases, we normally have oil and gas coming out of wells, and sometimes, we just have gas.</s>VELSHI: You see the pictures there on the screen of relief vessels that came in, helicopters -- all that kind of stuff. Is that the normal response, or is this because of what happened in the BP oil spill, that the minute we hear about explosion or fire in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a better response.</s>VAN NIEUWENHUISE: I think this was a relatively normal response. I do think that they were very careful to get out there and make sure the fire was taken care of quickly. It was not as big of a fire, nor is it as big of a rig as we saw at the Deepwater Horizon, and there's actually less product on this platform even though it is a production platform. So, the flames were a lot less. And, of course, when you're not fueling the flames with tens of thousands of barrels of oil, it's a lot easier to put it out. I think basically, they had maybe a couple of thousand barrels of fuel or stored oil on board that was on fire, and that was it. There was no flow of additional fuel to make the fire much bigger and much more dangerous.</s>VELSHI: What have you learned since yesterday about what may have caused this fire and whether or not we have reason to believe there were safety issues on this particular platform?</s>VAN NIEUWENHUISE: I have not learned any specifics on how it happened. I do know that a lot of times when we have small fires like this, either you have some sort of grinding tool or a torch and a settling, cutting torch or something else that creates sparks and fires in the wrong part of the platform that can start a fire. So, they'll probably find something like that, but I don't know any details at this point.</s>VELSHI: Don, it's good to talk to you. Always enjoy talking to you. But I have to say, if you and I had less conversations, it would probably be better for America because that would mean we're not talking about this kind of stuff. Good to see you, though, and thank you for being available to us.</s>VAN NIEUWENHUISE: Good seeing you.</s>VELSHI: All right -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Ali, thanks. Forty-five minutes past the hour right now. We're going to check in with Reynolds Wolf. He's been tracking Hurricane Earl. He's going to have the latest on the storm's location, where it's headed right after the break. And also a debate, governor's debate in Arizona, for the two candidates there. Some awkward moments, though, for Jan Brewer. We're going to show you what happened, little bit of a meltdown, and what she said about it afterwards. We're coming right back in a minute.