Screencap - gulf oil spill area in VancouverWow.  Here’s a new website that lets you compare the scale of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster to the size of your home city.  It’s sobering stuff. 

Translated to our part of the world, the area of the Gulf covered with oil last week was enough to…

  • Completely blanket the Puget Sound, plus all of the urban and suburban areas in the vicinity, plus hundreds of thousands of acres of adjacent farmland and forest.
  • Smear a layer of black goo over the entire Portland metro area—from Vancouver, WA in the north all the way down through Salem—with enough left over to blanket Mount Hood and beyond.
  • Smudge the entirety of Metro Vancouver, plus much of the Georgia Strait and the San Juans, as well as agricultural land well past Chilliwack.

Gruesome fun–try it for yourself.  And if you’re into this sort of thing, you should check out this  animated map of the oil spill’s spread.