shooting garage into a gaping hole in the well to try to plug it up, but before they resort to what's being called the junk shot, bp energy executives plan to try something else. let's go to cnn's david mattingly covering the story from louisiana. what else 1 going on over there? because it does not look good, david. >> reporter: wolf, this latest attempt to stem the flow of oil at the bottom of the gulf of mexico comes in the form of a device called a top hat. this top hat according to bp officials is actually a smaller containment dome, a fraction of the size of the one we were, they were attempting to use earlier. that dome was rendered useless when it filled up with crystals formed by gas and water. this dome, they say, because of its smaller size answers they're going to deploy it in a different way, should be able to avoid those crystals and should be able to get in place where it could siphon off a large fraction of that oil that's now leaking into the gulf. now, while they're working on