The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has proved to be a multifaceted disaster, with simultaneous developments on the surface of the water and at the wellhead 5,000 feet below, at the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and on shorelines from Texas to Florida, affecting wildlife, oil workers, tourism workers, and everyone who cares about the wealth of natural resources along the Gulf Coast.
In this Times-Picayune interactive graphic 
chronicling the first 100 days of the disaster, Ryan Smith and Dan Swenson bring together many of those threads, presenting the story of what happened day by day. It maps the spread of oil on the surface of the Gulf, fishing restrictions, and the areas of shoreline that have been affected. It also points up BP's various efforts to cap the Macondo well.
Incorporated in the graphic are video vignette of the stories of six people deeply affected by the oil spill:
- Pam Patrick, a Bucktown seafood vendor who asks, "How much more can we get knocked down?"
- Thomas "Uptown T" Stewart, an Uptown oyster shucker who boasts of his "tasty oysters, but they are from Florida at the moment."
- Mari Darr~Welch, a beach portrait photographer whose summer business is a quarter of what she would have expected without the spill.
- Nick Collins, a fourth-generation oyster harvester from Golden Meadow facing "grim realities."
- Chief Albert Naquin, leader of the Biloxi-Chitimacha community on Isle de Jean Charles, whose fears have not been realized.
- Kevin Vanderbrook a recreational fisher from Covington who finds renewal on the water.
