The circulation of Hurricane Alex is pushing oil into the Mississippi Sound and the oil is washing up onto the beaches of tourist areas on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with Biloxi beginning to see the effects, as the first wave of oil pollution hits the beach.
Under the threatening skies and the fringe effects of Alex, dozens and dozens of workers hired by BP spread out on a section of the Biloxi beach. With garden rakes and shovels, one by one, oil patty by oil patty, they scooped up the beached oil and bagged it.
But as the waves rolled in, their work loads just grew. The city of Biloxi believes more could have been done to prevent this scenario.
"What we were frustrated about was they (BP) had two months to set up everything that they could set up at our barrier islands. We thought that was going to be our first line of defense. It was an unorganized effort at best. So now we've got oil coming up on our beaches," said Vincent Creel, The City of Biloxi Public Affairs Manager.
The city of Biloxi wanted to see BP put more skimmers out by the barrier islands.
"We've asked for skimmer after skimmer after skimmer. We just have not seen them,” added Creel. “Now what the state's going to do is, the state's going to order up, they're supposed to have as many as two dozen skimmers in place. It's just how quickly they can get them built now."
While the city says the gaming industry has not been adversely affected, the charter boat and seafood processing industries have been hit hard. There wasn't a soul in the beach chairs Tuesday. There are no children on the water rides and the wave runners are not even on the beach. The owner of the company that rents the beach items is hurting.
"It was bad enough, just barely making enough money to actually, going in the hole, but at least we were open. And now we're just totally shut down," said Steve Harris the co-owner of Biloxi Beach Rentals.
When asked how he is surviving, he added, "Just day to day. Bills stacking up, hoping things were going to get better."
Diners on the balcony at Snapper's Seafood Restaurant have a direct view of oil clean up workers. The manager says the seafood is more expensive to get and patrons have stayed away because of myths like thinking oil fires are burning near the beach.
The manager said on a normal weekend there would be 12 to 15 servers. Now they only have customers enough to need three.
"The people want to know if our seafood is okay to eat,” said David Mason, the bar manager at Snapper’s. “They are under the impression that we will sell anything we can get our hands on. When I mean I only buy from approved sources. All of our oysters are checked twice a day before we ever get them. Shrimp's the same way."
A few tourists took detours to the beach Tuesday, but only to see the oil.
"I know this is our country and it's sad. Makes you kind of want to cry actually. It's really sad," said George Egan, who lives in Connecticut.
"You should see my shoes. We were walking down there. We did not know that the oil was there and it stuck all to the bottom of my shoe here. The stuff won't come off," said Steven Randolph who was in Biloxi visiting from his home near Memphis.
He is even taking oil back home in a souvenir box to show his friends.
In the meantime, the city of Biloxi says the show must go on.
"The beaches are open. We're going to have our fireworks show this weekend. We're going to have the deep sea fishing rodeo, granted it will probably be a little smaller than it's been in the past, the rodeo, but we're still open for business for the July 4th weekend," said Creel.
The mayor's office in Biloxi says that it took two months for the oil to get to its beaches, so even if the oil leak were to be stopped today, oil could still be coming ashore for a while.
