Update: A few days old now (May 7), but this Bloomberg story (via Ritholtz) has more information than most stories I’ve read.

All of the fisher-people, tourist industries and environmentalists, and everyone else who lives around the Gulf, are watching anxiously. “An estimated 5,000 barrels (over 200,000 gallons) of crude oil is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico every day” (6) “Eight robotic submarines were working around the clock to fix the well’s blowout preventer — a “fail safe” that nonetheless was unable to prevent the spill” (3) “The best-case scenario is that oil will continue gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for another week. British oil company BP is working to deploy a system that would siphon away crude from the blown-out well a mile underwater, but it will take six to eight days to get it in place.” (2) ‘Such an operation, he [BP CEO Tony Hayward] said, had “never been done at 5,000 feet.”‘ (3)

Maps from NOAA tracking the oil slick are here.

‘”I’ve been in Pensacola and I am very, very concerned about this filth in the Gulf of Mexico,” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said at a weekend fundraiser for his U.S. Senate campaign.’ (2) I’m just struck by calling it filth when Crist has apparently gone back and forth on drilling. In 2008, “Florida’s once-solid bipartisan opposition to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico shattered Tuesday when Gov. Charlie Crist reversed course and said the state may have to allow drilling to help lower gasoline prices.” (5) Back in the present and on the other coast, “California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed Monday his position on expanding drilling off of California’s coast in the wake of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.” (1)

“The spill now covers thousands of square miles and is getting close to the Loop Current, which speeds south through the Gulf and into the Florida Keys. It then hits the Gulf Stream, which could then drive the oil north along Florida’s Atlantic Coast.” (4)

“Over the weekend, Alabama Attorney General Troy King said he had told BP representatives to stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal residents that reportedly offered payments of up to $5,000 in exchange for not suing the company.” (3) “A law passed in response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska makes BP responsible for cleanup costs. But the law sets a $75 million limit on other kinds of damages.” (7)

‘”Would it be possible to just go out there and bomb the hell out of it?” said Kenny Wilder, 67, of Navarre, just east of Pensacola. A man behind him yelled, “Napalm it.”‘ (4)

1. NPR, 2. NPR, 3. NPR, 4. MSNBC”, 5. Palm Beach Post, 6. Boston Globe Big Picture, 7. AP