The massive oil spill has reached dangerous levels and is threatening to reach the shores that Barack Obama is heading there to check on the updates for himself. Fishing, both commercial and recreational, was thus banned from Louisiana to Florida.

BP PLC chairman Lamar McKay has said to ABC that he can’t say for certain when the well could be plugged and that they are still trying to activate a “blowout preventer” mechanism that is planned to seal off the oil geyser. “And as you can imagine, this is like doing open-heart surgery at 5,000 feet, with – in the dark, with robot-controlled submarines,” said McKay.

Company spokesman Bill Salvin said Sunday that the first of three boxes is nearly done. It’s being built in Port Fourchon, La., by a company called Wild Well Control. “I don’t think anybody foresaw the circumstance that we’re faced with now,” spokesman Steve Reinhart said. “The blowout preventer was the main line of defense against this type of incident, and it failed.”

The blowout preventer they were referring to was the failed equipment that resulted in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig last April 20, killing 11 people. The blowout preventer was supposed to activate after a blast to stop any oil from spilling over or leaking.