GULF SHORES, Alabama – In the laundry business you can expect to be tossed around a little bit. “I’m not an idiot. I know bad things can happen. Category fives can come through and run us out.”
But nothing prepared Anna Ashley for what she went through this summer. “We are open 12 hours a day and after the spill there was one 12 hour day where I sat here and this store made one dollar,” she says.
Her business is dependent on tourist staying weeks at a time at dozens of campgrounds in the area. “Thus far have not received one red cent from their office.”
Her latest call to the claims office put her in a spin. “I would like to quote what the agent told me,’off the record Mrs. Ashley I suggest you act as if no money is coming.'”
So far none has. No cash, no checks, nothing from the claims office for her business or dozens in south Baldwin County but the cash is going somewhere.
The latest figures from the Gulf Coast Claims Facility shows 54 and a half million dollars have been paid to individuals and businesses in Alabama.
34 point 6 of that has gone to Baldwin County. Almost 18 million to Mobile County. But that is still a fraction of the claims that have been filed.
Now it’s Ashley that feels like she’s been taken to the cleaners.
“All I’m asking is what I’m due. I am not a multi-million dollar business. I’m not asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m asked for what I am owed according to my papers and my statistics.”
See video here: http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/thousands-still-wait-for-claim-checks/933282/Sep-21-2010_6-20-pm/
