Economic Impact
Last week one motel on our barrier island had 160 rooms reserved for this weekend. As of Thursday 100 people have canceled their reservations.
It is sunny and in the low 80s. The Gulf is turquoise and the sand is sugar white. Oh, yes, there are millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf that could wash ashore at any time.
Every time the GOP starts this debate, they claim that oil drilling won’t affect tourism because the wells will be invisible from the beach. The ‘well from hell’ is over 200 miles and two states away, but a lot of people who would have had work this weekend in that motel don’t now.
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And the consequences of the disaster propagate. If you have any beach night clubs or high-toned restaurants and bars that offer live music, you may be sure there will be musicians out of work as well. In music business classes, when they tell you about risks to your business, they never teach you about oil spills…
Mother’s Day weekend was always the stop gap between Spring Break and Memorial Day for the local tourist-related places. It wasn’t big money on the beach, but it was money to tide you over until the real season opened.
Oh, yes, there are places on the beach for live music and a number of semi-pro bands whose members have been more dependent on the cash from their gigs since the jobs dried up and blew away.
This is looking worse that the shark problem in Jaws.
the well from hell. i’m going to steal that.
Feel free, Hipparchia. The longer this goes on the less regard I have to the professional competence of the off-shore industry. I have always known that the people at the top were slimy money-grubbers, but I hoped that the people doing the work had enough pride to stop the worst of the abuses. It would appear I was wrong.
I hoped that the people doing the work had enough pride to stop the worst of the abuses.
it used to be true, but their jobs, like everyone else’s over the years, have been cut back on pay, on benefits, on the various other things that make a job worth being proud of, rather than just something to keep the wolves from the door.
We are no longer keeping wolves from the door, we are working for them.