It's been a few weeks since the capping, how is everything going? How are the beaches? Tourists coming back? Keep us posted, thanks

 

 

Bumping this up in case tof logs on again.

 

Sorry...been kind of busy lately and haven't gotten in here as often or for as long as I would like.

Oil situation is pretty quiet now. We still see two-man teams on the beach but I think they are picking up more bird doodoo than oil patties. Things are probably still more serious in lower Louisiana. We plan to do another Saturday at the Audubon Volunteer Response Center when we get back from the Dragon. That's where we get a lot of local news out of Louisiana.

Around here we see lots of BP ads about how they are here until everybody is made whole economically but some losses will never be recovered. Folks who depend on others who depend on tourism--contractors who service the casino industry for example--probably won't be able to make successful claims. Nor will the 36 people layed off at Memorial Hospital last week, where revenue is down. Of corse its really a double-whammy of national recession and local tourism impact.

We have really been very lucky that no major hurricanes came into the gulf to interfere with BP efforts to stop the leak and clean up. We've all got our fingers crossed that tourism will bounce back next spring and that we won't have any MORE disasters, natural or man-made, for awhile.