Alex "So Darn Large," But Oil-Storm Fears Unfounded?
Hurricane to devastate Gulf oil-spill effort? Probably not, experts say.
Since April thousands of barrels of oil have been gushing daily from the seafloor site of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which blew up and sank about 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast of New Orleans. (See "Hurricane Could Push Spilled Gulf Oil Into New Orleans.")
But tropical storm Alex will be too weak and too far away from the spill to drive oil far inland, said Stephen Pennings, a professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston in Texas.
Alex is expected to make landfall as a hurricane late Wednesday or early Thursday near the Texas-Mexico border, about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the Gulf oil spill. (See Gulf of Mexico map.)
"Something like the current storm
