Image via WikipediaDESTIN -- The shucked oysters and grouper sandwiches were flying out of the kitchen Sunday at Pompano Joe's, an oceanside restaurant popular with Gulf Coast tourists.
The Silver Sands outlet store complex parking lot was jammed. Bars were crowded. Traffic moved at a snail's pace on U.S. 98 -- and few complained.
After weeks of fears of an economic disaster in northwest Florida because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the crowds are back this Memorial Day weekend, which kicks off the summer tourist season in the region known as the Emerald Coast.
``I'm trying to get our economy going,'' said Joan Franklin of Tampa, who wasn't about to let oil spill fears keep her from a trip she looks forward to every year.
``We figured the spill wasn't going to hit. It looks like it's nowhere near here,'' said B.J. Morrison of Hattiesburg, Miss., who waited a half hour to get a table at Pompano Joe's -- where a manager said Saturday's cash receipts broke the single-day record.
``What you're seeing now is a peak of people coming to the beach,'' said Amelia Snellgrove of Pelham, Ga. `They don't want to wait and have the oil come. Everybody I know came to the beach this weekend.''
Destin beachgoers were surprised to get a first-hand welcome from Gov. Charlie Crist, who showed up to personally thank the tourists for coming.
``I'm the governor, and we're happy to have you,'' Crist said to Terry Harris of Birmingham, standing near a bright-red beach tent. He and a group of friends were enjoying their second pitcher of what Alabamians call ``summer beer'' -- a mixture of Crystal Light lemonade, light beer and vodka.
With TV cameras at the ready, Crist signed paperwork freeing more than $2 million for Panhandle tourism boards to spend on ads tailored to keep people coming to northwest Florida. The 45-day commercial blitzes will be paid for with some of BP's $25 million donated to Florida.
That's good, said Carol Dover of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, who estimated that restaurant business across the Gulf Coast is down 30 percent since the spill. A number of places have laid off workers, Dover said.
``It's our job to help,'' Crist said. ``We're all in this together. We don't have a drop of oil on our beaches, and we want to make sure the people across America understand that.''
Crist and his wife, Carole, spent the weekend at the Hilton in nearby Sandestin -- keeping the governor's face on Panhandle TV stations as he tries to gain ground as an independent U.S. Senate candidate.
Farther east, near Port St. Joe, Presnell's Bayside Marina hosts in-shore charter fishing trips. Known as ``flats fishing,'' small groups of people head out to St. Joseph Bay to fish for some of the best scallops around.
The scalloping is better than usual this season, and co-owner Paula Erickson noted that if oil sneaks into the bay, it would devastate both the wildlife and her livelihood.
``We're saying prayers every day that it doesn't come this way,'' she said.
Her son, Capt. Kyle Erickson, said he's down between 30 and 40 fishing charter trips since the spill: I've called them up and many of them say, 'We're not going to come down this year because of the oil.'?
Six Auburn University students were camped on Cape San Blas, a tiny strip of land jutting out from the corner of the Panhandle's Big Bend.
Jacob Wilder, 23, who just graduated with a degree in public relations, said he would have gone to the beach even if there was oil -- he just would have stayed out of the water. His pals were skeptical, reminding him that the oil doesn't smell so good.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/30/1656380/beachgoers-unfazed-by-spill.html#ixzz0pTqhMn6b
1 comment:
I can eat vinegar on my fish but not oil.
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