Perdido Key - The Holdup Behind the Cleanup
Brett Norman
PensacolaNewsJournal.com
Perdido Key's recovery from Hurricane Ivan has been hampered by an excruciatingly slow cleanup.
Until recently, debris was piled up on the key, while Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, just on the other side of the Alabama line, were cleaned up within months of the storm.
The difference?
Perdido Key took the full brunt of the hurricane's most powerful winds and storm surge, so damage there was more severe than across the state line.
In addition, Escambia County officials were dealing with a ravaged 660 square miles while the two small municipalities focused on reviving their beach-driven economies.
Escambia County waited for the state to pick up most of the debris along Perdido Key Drive, a state road, while Orange Beach and Gulf Shores launched an immediate cleanup of State Road 182, the Perdido Key Drive extension.
Gulf Shores Mayor G.W. "Billy" Duke III recalled the obvious difference "as soon as you crossed the state line."
"When things hit, we just sort of get after it," he said.
Orange Beach financed the operation with a line of credit from a local bank before receiving assurances of reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, City Administrator Jeff Moon said.
"It was a bit of a leap of faith," he said. "But we knew what we needed to do. We knew that we had to get back open. Our whole economy is based on tourism."
The day after Ivan's strike on Sept. 16, 2004, Alabama crews also began repairing State Road 182. Within 72 hours, traffic was flowing on the five-lane Gulf-front road. Eleven days later, the road was open to the general public.
Perdido Key Drive was not completely repaired and open to all traffic until Dec. 6, 2004.
"The biggest problem was they had five lanes of asphalt to travel on and we only had two," Escambia County Administrator George Touart said. "The state was out there as soon as possible, but when you've got a road that's only two lanes, was unprotected along the park areas and washed out in so many places, it's just going to take longer."
Mike Foster, vice president for marketing at the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, believes that Alabama's beaches received quick aid because the state is invested heavily in its 32-mile slice of the Gulf Coast.
Also, Ivan was Alabama's first hurricane that season. It was Florida's third in less than a month.
Alabama devotes 30 percent of its tourism development budget to its Gulf-front resort communities, Foster said. They generate more bed tax revenue than Birmingham, Duke said.
By contrast, the 17 mile-long key is a relatively insignificant fraction of Florida's 1,300 miles of coastline and mammoth $57 billion annual tourism industry.
"It makes a big difference when you're the only two counties on the water," Moon said of Baldwin and Mobile counties. "We got whatever we asked for."
PensacolaNewsJournal.com
Perdido Key's recovery from Hurricane Ivan has been hampered by an excruciatingly slow cleanup.
Until recently, debris was piled up on the key, while Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, just on the other side of the Alabama line, were cleaned up within months of the storm.
The difference?
Perdido Key took the full brunt of the hurricane's most powerful winds and storm surge, so damage there was more severe than across the state line.
In addition, Escambia County officials were dealing with a ravaged 660 square miles while the two small municipalities focused on reviving their beach-driven economies.
Escambia County waited for the state to pick up most of the debris along Perdido Key Drive, a state road, while Orange Beach and Gulf Shores launched an immediate cleanup of State Road 182, the Perdido Key Drive extension.
Gulf Shores Mayor G.W. "Billy" Duke III recalled the obvious difference "as soon as you crossed the state line."
"When things hit, we just sort of get after it," he said.
Orange Beach financed the operation with a line of credit from a local bank before receiving assurances of reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, City Administrator Jeff Moon said.
"It was a bit of a leap of faith," he said. "But we knew what we needed to do. We knew that we had to get back open. Our whole economy is based on tourism."
The day after Ivan's strike on Sept. 16, 2004, Alabama crews also began repairing State Road 182. Within 72 hours, traffic was flowing on the five-lane Gulf-front road. Eleven days later, the road was open to the general public.
Perdido Key Drive was not completely repaired and open to all traffic until Dec. 6, 2004.
"The biggest problem was they had five lanes of asphalt to travel on and we only had two," Escambia County Administrator George Touart said. "The state was out there as soon as possible, but when you've got a road that's only two lanes, was unprotected along the park areas and washed out in so many places, it's just going to take longer."
Mike Foster, vice president for marketing at the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, believes that Alabama's beaches received quick aid because the state is invested heavily in its 32-mile slice of the Gulf Coast.
Also, Ivan was Alabama's first hurricane that season. It was Florida's third in less than a month.
Alabama devotes 30 percent of its tourism development budget to its Gulf-front resort communities, Foster said. They generate more bed tax revenue than Birmingham, Duke said.
By contrast, the 17 mile-long key is a relatively insignificant fraction of Florida's 1,300 miles of coastline and mammoth $57 billion annual tourism industry.
"It makes a big difference when you're the only two counties on the water," Moon said of Baldwin and Mobile counties. "We got whatever we asked for."
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