I came to the Coast today (Wednesday).  Tomorrow, I am going with a group to fly out to the spill site and then along the Louisiana to Florida Coast. 

In the afternoon, DEQ and DMR are briefing us as to their operations thus far.  On Friday I am driving to Mobile to visit the Unified Command Center for this area.

While I will get a tour and briefing on the Center, I am mainly going there to visit the Mississippians who are working there.  Mississippi has got a lot of people from DEQ, DMR, Public Health, National Guard, Mental Health working very, very hard here to minimize damage and handle the human factor.

The Coast has been through a lot.  First, Katrina, than Ivan, than the economic downturn, and now the oil spill. I know we have had our problems in the Delta, but these people keep coming back to be knocked down again.

I did meet with BP at one of their Coast Command Centers (actually a large room in one of our state office buildings).  We got a briefing on how they were addressing and reaching out to the communities, how they are adjusting to the claims process and some of the problems they are encountering, and how they are preparing for the short- and long- term future.

I found the lady who is directing this to be both genuine and forthcoming.  When she got to the operational side of the oil spill, I told her I was more interested in the "people" issues and did not really want to hear about the operational side of the spill because I was afraid I would let her know how I really felt about her company. 

I let it go at, "The higher the oil spill flow estimate goes up, the lower your integrity rating goes down and I just do not believe much of what is being said by BP about the spill.”

Apparently BP has decentralized the claims process and is paying them almost as fast as they come in, as long as there is documentation.  What BP is requiring is income statements for two years. 

Once a business is on the list the payments are made monthly or quarterly and BP is counting on some level of trust that that the business will notify them when revenues increase as well a decrease.

A major problem I wanted addressed is when a business gets reimbursed for its losses, what does it do about the employees it has either laid off or cut back hours?  Well, the answer was the individual employee must file a loss of income claim with BP.  I'm not sure, but seems to me the business makes out like a bandit since it is replacing loss revenue without having expenses.

I believe the BP "boots on the ground" people are in their hearts sorry this happened, are working to make the claims process easier, and are committed to making things right.  I am just unsure of the suits, the corporate culture, and (as we are discovering) the initial reaction to "CYA."

By the way, many of you from Clarksdale remember Rory Reardon...he is now under contract with BP and sat in on the meeting.

I took some DEQ people, representatives and even a couple of BP people to dinner tonight to express my thanks to the DEQ folks for their efforts.  We ate at a Vietnamese Restaurant---Kim Long's at 832 Division Street.  Tomorrow, I will send pictures of the spill area.  I will try to do them e-mail size so they won't take a lot of space.