PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. —

The smell of oil hangs heavy in the sea air. Children with plastic
shovels scoop up clumps of goo in the waves. Beachcombers collect
tarballs as if they were seashells.

The BP catastrophe arrived with the tide on the Florida Panhandle's
white sands Friday as the company worked to adjust a cap over the
gusher in a desperate and untested bid to arrest what is already the
biggest oil spill in U.S. history. The widening scope of the
slow-motion disaster deepened the anger and despair just as President
Barack Obama arrived for his third visit to the stricken Gulf Coast.

The oil has now reached the shores of four Gulf states - Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida - turning its marshlands into death
zones for wildlife and staining its beaches rust and crimson in an
affliction that some said brought to mind the plagues and punishments
of the Bible.

"In Revelations it says the water will turn to blood," said P.J. Hahn,
director of coastal zone management for Louisiana's Plaquemines
Parish. "That's what it looks like out here - like the Gulf is
bleeding. This is going to choke the life out of everything."

He added: "It makes me want to cry."

Six weeks after the April 20 oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers,
the well has leaked somewhere between 22 million and 47 million
gallons of oil, according to government estimates.