Ramon Antonia Vargas, a reporter at The Times-Picayune, rolled out of bed at 5 a.m. on April 21 to check the local news and came across the press release from the Coast Guard. The press release said the previous night an oil drilling rig, known as the MODU Deepwater Horizon, had exploded and caught fire at 10 p.m. in the Gulf of Mexico, about 45 miles southeast of Venice, La.

“It was about a minute after I had woken up and I had already made my first call to the Coast Guard,” said Vargas.

President Barack Obama on Friday took his second trip to the Gulf Coast since an underwater oil well began spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico. At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport the president was greeted by Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the response efforts.

Though President Barack Obama was less than a mile away, most residents of Grand Isle, La., never got to see his face. Some barely got to see his car. Led by a convoy of more than 20 police motorbikes and flanked by armored cars, Obama was escorted Friday to a beach in Port Fourchon, La., before riding quickly through the streets of Grand Isle to give a press conference at a Coast Guard station.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m., fell asleep in the shower and somehow managed to throw clothes on my body by 5:07 a.m.

President Barack Obama took full responsibility for controlling the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico at a White House news conference Thursday, but said the government would continue to rely on BP for cleanup efforts because of their superior technology and expertise.

The impact of the oil spill on the wildlife has become a major concern as oil continues to gush from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, damaging their homes. And as reports of oiled birds, turtles and other animals begin to come into the Deepwater Horizon Response Joint Information Center, rescue centers throughout the Gulf are preparing for an influx of activity.

Nearly 40 oyster fishermen met Tuesday with state officials, lawyers and a representative from an oyster crop insurance company at the University of New Orleans to discuss how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has impacted their industry.

As oil reaches the coastline, frustration grows among the residents of Venice, Louisiana. Now the town, which was just putting itself back together after Katrina, is forced to do it all over again. Except this time its residents are dealing with the frustration of having to replenish something much larger than their homes — the ocean.

After flying over the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, two Cabinet officials joined Gov. Bobby Jindal in angry criticism of BP for failing to stop the ongoing spill and said the government was considering taking emergency measures to prevent oil from reaching Louisiana’s fragile wetlands.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, and Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, expressed their frustration with BP. They were accompanied by Louisiana’s two U.S. senators.

With an estimated 200,000 gallons a day of oil continuing to leak into the Gulf of Mexico, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said he has decided to take matters into his own hands.