​Molly Price

As the anniversary of the BP oil spill approaches, Orange Beach, Ala. is taking time to reflect on both the good and the bad that this tragedy has brought to the area.

Orange Beach suffered greatly, along with the rest of the Gulf Coast, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, spilling 4.9 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Many restaurants and fishing charters were hit hard by the loss of resources, but they weren’t the only ones. Businesses whose revenue depended on tourism and summer vacationers saw a steep drop in profits as well. The long, hot and oily summer of 2010 was a dark one for many Orange Beach locals.

Tom Steber, president of the Orange Beach Fishing Association and owner of Zeke’s Landing Marina, experienced first-hand the damage of the spill.  His charter business is the busiest between Memorial Day and mid-August, a window that overlapped with the gulf cleanup efforts.

“We totally survive off of tourism,” Steber said. “We went from doing about $2.5 million worth of business to about $200,000 last year.” 

 

Though the drop in revenue was alarming, Steber and many other charter company owners were forced to become involved with the spill in order to survive the slump in business.

“Fortunately for the charter industry, almost if not all of them, were hired by BP to work cleaning up oil,” Steber said. “Some actually ended up making more money that they would doing their normal living, but that’s definitely not what they wanted to do. “

Steber said boats were paid $1200 to $3000 per day depending on their size, to help spot and clean oil as well as look for oil birds.

Fishing and boating weren’t the only industries struck by the spill. The real estate market in the community saw a decline in interest and faced challenges with vacation rentals.

“We had about a 40 percent downturn last summer in our vacation rentals,” said Emily Gonzalez, marketing director for Kaiser Realty in Orange Beach. “There’s an 8 to 12 week window where summer vacationers come in, and that’s where we make our revenue to stay alive, and that’s exactly the 8 to 12 weeks that the oil was on our beach.”

Gonzalez and her team had to find ways to promote the Orange Beach area and had to act quickly. Kaiser Realty used social media to share the condition of the beaches with their public.

Through photos on Facebook and information on the company’s blog, Kaiser Realty documented every day of the spill, even when it wasn’t pretty.

“People began to really trust our site as a trusted source of information,” Gonzalez said. “We saw a major spike in web activity.”

Gonzalez said she was proud of how her team handled the crisis, but nevertheless very sad about the spill.

“I actually grew up in the area,” Gonzales said. “We would wake up on a summer morning, get out of our pajamas and put on a bathing suit and come down to the beach and stay until sunset — that’s how my mom raised me.”

Though the spill brought numerous challenges to the living and working community of Orange Beach, the healing process is continuing and efforts are being made to ensure that everyone can move on with a positive outlook for 2011. 

Pastor Michael Bonham, of Peace Lutheran Church in Orange Beach organized a prayer vigil to be held on the shore at Cotton Bayou beach access. The event is being held on the anniversary of the spill, beginning at midnight April 20 and lasting until 6 p.m.

“Various churches have taken one hour blocks of time where there will be somebody at the beach,” Bonham said. “They will be lifting the community and it’s leadership up in prayer for insight and for healing and to restore a sense of hope.”

There are 10 churches participating in the event and an estimated 400-1000 guests. Bonham believes that bringing people together will help the community move on as a whole.
“The focus is looking into the future,” Bonham said.  “It is not a time to sit and think back to what happened and to wallow in that.”

Many people are optimistic about the future of Orange Beach and look forward to seeing the community return to normal operations this summer. 

“We did see quite a bit of our snowbirds come back to us this winter which was wonderful, “ said Kim Chapman, public relations director with the city of Orange Beach. “They are very supportive and loyal for us, and we have seen quite a bit to spring break traffic come through.”

Chapman said things are picking up again for many area businesses.

“We’re hearing from the lodging partners, restaurants and attractions in the area that they’re seeing a lot of inquiries and a lot of traffic come through their doors,” Chapman said. “We are cautiously optimistic.”

Steber agrees that even tragedies like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill can have a silver lining.

“In all honesty, before, 95 percent of the United States had never heard of Orange Beach, Ala.,” Steber said. “Now the whole world knows where it is, how great the beaches are and how great the fishing is.”

Though he is optimistic, Steber realizes that the Gulf of Mexico may not be out of the dark just yet. Damage has not been fully assessed and the sense of what is to come is unsettling.

“The beaches are cleaner than they’re ever been, and it’s incredible how great the fishing is,” Steber said. “We just don’t know what it’s going to do to that down the road.”