political plant but did a new campaign speech help democrat alvin greene gain new supporters in his bid to become south carolina s next u.s. senator? i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. let s get back to our top story this hour. another 24 hours of testing now under way on the new well cap in the gulf of mexico. officials are keeping close watch on pressure readings and possible leaks but so far the incident commander thad allen says no significant problems have been detected. it s been four days since the cap shut in the well and stopped the oil that had been gushing since april. still, protesters are planning to gather right here in washington tomorrow exactly three months after the rig explosion that unleashed this disaster. mary snow has been monitoring a hearing today on the cause of the explosion. mary, i take there were some fireworks. there were, wolf. these are hearingsconducted by
any indication that there is a threat to the well bore. shepard: that s seepage. the well cap is another matter. admiral allen says he has agreed to let bp test the cap for another 24 hours with officials keeping a close on it for signs of trouble. phil keating live in mississippi coast. one sign of trouble would be a drop of pressure inside that cap, right? right, shep. it s all about the pressure under that cap at this point. that s what scientists around the country are all studying. the pressure tonight is 6811 pounds per square inch. scientists all along thought it would be higher and rise faster than it has. two possible explanations. number one if the three months of gushing into the gulf of mexico, this oil reservoir simply has lost a lot of its punch, or possible scenario number two, much more dire, and that is possibly the cap is forcing the pressure down and out and that could be possibly forcing oil and methane gas to then explode somewhere else in the gulf floor that c
alex, thank you. water surrounding the broken well in the gulf remain calm again today. they re increasingly confident about the new well cap. after days of watching, still no signs of any leaks. even with the flow of crude apparently stopped for now, a tremendous clean-up lies ahead. nbc s mark potter has the latest from the recovery efforts from pensacola beach, florida. it s almost as if they ve now figured out what seems to be a good stop gap in terms of the leaking oil. now the attention can go full board on the clean-up. reporter: the truth is with the well cap holding, no new oil is going into the gulf of mexico but there s old oil floating out there for miles and miles. we were able to get a fresh look at that on our flight with the u.s. coast guard. on a coast guard flight from mobi mobile, palm, to the deepwater
middle of a crowded expo. police say eight people were shot in indianapolis at the indiana black expo. police say none of the injuries appear life-threatening. no arrests have been made. cautious optimism from the gulf of mexico f. for the fourth day bp s well cap appears to prevent the oil from escaping. now 90 days into the disaster, the government is weighing its next move. they evaluated the cap. it seems to be holding, but oil pressure is still lower than experts had predicted or hoped for. bp wants to make sure it doesn t indicate a hidden leak somewhere else. they say an evaluation of the cap is likely to end this afternoon. nearly a mile of pipes would be hooked to the well to begin funneling oil to the tankers on the surface. to do that, crude would have to be released temporarily into the gulf to relief pressure.
believe how stifling it was, too hot. remember you had the huge snowstorms this winter too. a lot of extremes. a lot of extremes, bill karins, great to see you, thanks so much. a technical briefing this past hour, a bp executive said it will continue to test the well cap which currently appears to have stopped the flow of oil into the gulf. while the cap seems to have choked, hoe pressure readings suggest it could be leaking elsewhere on the seafloor. meanwhile, the oil spill is taking an emotional toll on gul coast residents, michelle franzen is live in pensacola beach. there s a lot of talk about the mental health of people in that region? reporter: that s exactly right as we enter the three-month period of when the spill began, there s a lot of stress and anxiety that s