Six years ago I was swept into the wild currents of an event that has proven to be the largest environmental calamity of its type in the history of man - the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Not long retired, I was recruited to help assess the impacts of the ongoing disaster on Delta and Breton National Wildlife Refuges near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Working out of a government facility at Venice, we lived in an atmosphere electric with frenzied activity, excitement, and danger.