Douglas Adams Was Wrong: We Are Not “Mostly Harmless.”
Lyndsey here. If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been out of pocket for the past few weeks. Mostly because it’s summer time in Alabama and my pool doesn’t have wi-fi and my office frowns upon bikinis and coconut rum. If I find a way to bring the two worlds together, my posts will probably get much more imaginative and abundant.
So now that I’ve explained my cringeworthy absence, let’s talk some more about the crisis in the Gulf. You may realize by now that this is something of marked interest in my life. I have family and friends in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—so this is personal. I’m also a short drive away from the coast, so I have first-hand knowledge of what is really going on and let me tell you, try to contain your shock, the news media isn’t doing a bang-up job of covering it with much accuracy.
Every major news network appears to have a team of animation experts conjuring up footage depicting the latest solution for capping the oil leak; an underwater camera showing a billowing cloud of oil plays uninterrupted to one side of the screen at all times. Pundits talk of BP’s public relations gaffes and reporters pose indelicately beside dead, oil-soaked birds or globs of tar wrapped in seaweed. But absolutely no television footage can aptly convey what it’s like to stand on the beach for the thousandth time and not recognize what was once a God-given security blanket.
I can close my eyes and be seven-years old, standing on the deck of my beach house, looking at the ocean, feeding seagulls. I can be patiently, slowly walking the beach with my grandmother after hurricane Opal, picking up glass shards and scattered bits of our neighbors homes—marveling at the sight of beach houses collapsed like compressed garbage. I thought losing our beach house was the most heartbreaking thing in the whole world; it was beyond possibility that we could also lose our beach.
This weekend I visited Panama City Beach, Florida and discovered a wealth of surprises—the most important being that the ocean was devoid of oil sheen, tar balls, or even an odor. The beach was beautiful, the water was perfect, and tourism was alive and kicking. Seafood in tourist towns has always been over-priced so I didn’t have a reference point for raised prices. I was elated to take what might be my final swim in the ocean for a long time. For the time-being, the waters and beaches of Destin and Gulf Shores are also reportedly in the same, unaffected state.
Standing on a sand bar, ducking under salty waves, it was still difficult to forget that the oil spill was manifesting itself on shores just a few miles away. There are tar balls washing up on Pensacola’s perfect white sand and a brown sheen has tainted its coke-bottle-green waves. Mississippi and Louisiana have had wildlife-killing crude oil soaking into areas along the shore for days. My heartbreak and outrage are converging into thick clouds like oil with chemical dispersants. Everyone is unified in shared disbelief; the anger is palpable. These are communities of people bound together by decades of rebuilding after hurricanes and economic hardships, but this is uncharted territory. After every storm there is a sunny day during which we survey the damage and assess our loss—but this is a continual trauma. We have yet to realize the extent of the harm… and it’s enough to make a person crazy.
Some attention-starved girl decided to don a gas mask with a bikini for her seaside adventures in Gulf Shores. It was a thoughtless slap in the face to the hundreds of small business and property owners whose economic wellbeing depends on beach-seeking tourists who could be discouraged by the dishonest message conveyed by someone wearing a gas mask on a beach. Not only is it completely unnecessary (there are no noxious fumes), even hazmat clean-up crews in areas that have actually been impacted don’t wear gas masks.
But of course the image is making the rounds in the national media.
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Category: The Good Old US of A
I read an article over the weekend that the boardwalk in Gulf Shores is tacky with oil from beach-goers feet. So sad indeed. I ironically find myself siding w/ Carville on this one. There is bias against the South; if this had occurred off of Martha's Vineyard, it would be a different story. Great post!
Great point, Casey – I found out this morning that tar has indeed begun washing up on the beaches of Gulf Shores. I'm heading back down this weekend and will try to shoot video and take pictures.
Hope to see you tonight at the Tweet Up!
Having just returned from a deployment to the Middle East, I had a weekend getaway planned for next month. Many of the people who deployed with me will be bringing their families to a resort near Gulf Shores for a few days of much needed R&R and a chance to reconnect with those we've been away from for several months. What kind of welcome home celebration will this be, now? Many of my coworkers must now deploy again to clean up the mess before we can enjoy our well-deserved time off.
Great point – but even in Pensacola and other beach areas that have been affected, there are still droves of beach-goers walking the beach and laying in the sun. I'm sure you'll still have a fabulous time in GS – as long as the Pink Pony serves bucket Long Islands, there is hope.
Amazing the disconnect between the comments and what you've written here. I've observed exactly the same thing, frantic "journalists" walking pristine white sand beaches populated with throngs of rapidly reddening bodies while seeking a tar ball to point to.
Yes, there are marshes and beaches being impacted, but a lot of it is islands and off-shore areas and what has hit the mainland so far has been scattered and sporadic.
It seems that this is much like the typical hurricane coverage, "Well, Shirley, we've got the first tropical depression building in the Atlantic and we predict a Cat V storm could devastate the Florida coast in three weeks…." Film at eleven.