ORANGE BEACH, Alabama – “Mr. Feinberg told me point blank in an audience of 500 people that Mr. Silvers I understand your type of business. You will get a check.”
Instead, Jeff Silvers got just the opposite. “There was no question in my mind that we were going to get a check this past week and until then we just got our notice that we were denied.”
It’s the same story all up and down Canal Road in Orange Beach as dozens of business claims go from being “under review” to denied.
“The saga continues doesn’t it.” Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon was back on the phone with Kenneth Feinberg earlier today. “From what I understand the denials are based on proximity to the oil.”
“We are a half a mile away from the gulf,” says Silvers. “We are probably a third of the mile away from the bay. We had oil all around us.”
The latest numbers from the Gulf Coast Claims Facility show Alabama leading all other states in the number of claims denied at 473. Florida is next with 88 denied. There are 23 denied claims in Louisiana so far. 15 in Mississippi and 4 in Texas.
Kennon says Feinberg has promised to review all the denied claims. “Which just astounds me because these are all businesses down on the island south of the intracoastal canal and we were all affected.”
Feinberg promised to speed up the process but no one imagined it would be like this.
“A lot of businesses are in survival mode and have been in survival mode. We are not going to close down here but I’m fighting for all the other business alike around me it’s just an absolute shame,” says Silvers.
So far there is no way to appeal a denied claim. Something Feinberg promised in his meeting in Orange Beach last week.
See video here: http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/alabama-leads-in-denied-claims/946400/Sep-24-2010_8-40-pm/
