(Photo: AP)
CLICK HERE FOR THE MOST DRAMATIC OIL SPILL IMAGES FROM THE LAST 100 DAYS.
GRAND ISLE, La. — (AP) A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fisherman. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling.
Then the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana, and in an instant, life along the Gulf Coast changed for good.
Pete spends her days worrying that the fishing industry may never recover. Nungesser has put his wedding on hold while he sits in meetings and argues with federal officials. And Sisskin continues to talk about the dangers of drilling – only now, people are listening.
The 100 days since the April 20 explosion have been a gut-wrenching time for folks who work, play and live along the Gulf Coast. The Gulf is a sanctuary for some, an employer for others, and now, a tragedy.
These are their stories.
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The Restaurant Owners
A hundred days ago, business was booming at Barrios Seafood Restaurant in Golden Meadow, La., during Lent, when many of the Roman Catholics in south Louisiana forgo red meat. Customers were lined up for meals of crab, shrimp, fish and other seafood delivered hours after being pulled from the Gulf.
Alicia and Thomas Barrios believed their years of struggling to get the business going were finally paying off.
“We were saying, ‘If business is this good now, just think what it will be like in the summer,’” Alicia Barrios said. “It was more money than we had ever made before in our lives.”
They began sprucing up the restaurant, even adding a patio with visions of customers lingering there this summer. Then the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and the oil began filling the Gulf.
“I’d say about 50 percent of our business was tourist, and they stopped coming immediately,” Alicia said. “Seafood got hard to get, the price went up and people are worried about eating it.”
These days, Thomas Barrios is working in the Vessels of Opportunity program, helping BP clean up the spill. Alicia Barrios has had to lay off two of her employees and the adjacent market is only open only two days a week.
She’s also thinking about how to change the menu if the price of seafood keeps going up and it remains scarce.
“I guess we could start serving pasta and hamburgers,” she said. “But I’m afraid to spend the money on a new sign and menus. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the BP check, we’d already be closed.”
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The Sandwich Maker
A hundred days ago, Cherie Pete and her husband, Alfred, were expecting another steady stream of customers at the little store they used her life savings to build on the main road to Venice, La.
Everyone in town calls the 45-year-old mother of three “Maw” anyway, so she decided to name the place Maw’s Sandwich and Snack Shop.
The store opened last year, attracting a devoted group of locals who came for po-boys and ice cream, plus weekenders who showed up from New Orleans in droves to rent campsites and charter fishing trips.
“And all of a sudden, we don’t have them coming in,” she said. (FULL STORY)
