On March 23, 1989 at 9:00 pm, the 987-foot-long Exxon Valdez oil tanker left Valdez for Long beach. At 11:15 pm, the tanker had to move out of the outbound shipping lane to avoid floating ice. After that, everything went downhill. Captain Joseph Hazelwood turned command over to Third Mate Gregory Cousins. Cousins was told to turn back to the shipping lane when they reached Busby Island, but he was a little late. A lookout spotted the Bligh Reef warning light, but it was to late. Cousins ordered the "counter rudder maneuver," which swung the boat around to avoid the reef. Unfortunately, the momentum swung the boat into the reef. On March 24, at 12:04, the Exxon Valdez collided with Bligh Reef. A hole was ripped open in the side. Oil went gushing out at 233 gallons a second. Hazelwod radioed the Coast Guard, who contacted Alyeska, the organization which

was formed by American and European oil companies. Alyeska tried to get a boat out to the spill, but it was buried in the snow. It took them 14 precious hours to get a boat and load equipment onto it. When they finally got out to the spill, they tried to contain the oil with boom lines that stop oil from spreading. Unfortunately, the oil either went over or under the lines, and the little ships couldn't handle the oil by themselves. This was the beginning of the largest and most disastrous oil spill in America's history