It's been less than a day since Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup crews—forced out by rising waters and winds from Hurricane Alex—left a relatively clean Fourchon Beach, Louisiana.

But already the oil is back.

On Wednesday morning powerful, hurricane-driven waves crashed over abandoned booms, soggy with chocolate-brown oil. Patches of weathered, orange-red oil ringed a decontamination station, where normally workers would be de-greasing shoes and equipment.

And in just minutes the tide rose at least 6 inches (about 15 centimeters) at this shoreline on the edge of Lafourche Parish's Port Fourchon, a major oil port on the Gulf of Mexico—the highest tide ever seen by Brennan Matherne, public information officer for the parish.

(See Gulf