When the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded onApril 20 and started a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico,weary Mississippi Gulf Coast residents expected the worst.

University of Southern Mississippi researchers have confirmed thatcoastal residents’ fears were valid and the oil spill has haddevastating effects on the Gulf Coast economy, said Michael Webb,an international development research associate on the university’sGulf Coast campus.

“The oil spill is definitely having a negative impact on thecoastal economy,” said Webb while speaking Monday morning as thefirst speaker of Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s annual LectureSeries.

Webb said the coastal economy has been hit by three major disastersin the past five years, including 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, theeconomic recession that started in 2007, and now, the oilspill.

“It’s been a triple whammy,” he said.

When the oil spill started, university researchers were alreadyworking on the Gulf Coast while researching the impact of HurricaneKatrina. After the oil spill, the Katrina research was put on holdto study the immediate effects of the spill, said Webb.

The university wanted to have immediate information available tothe public, so they started surveying 50 coastal businesses,including hotels, charter boats, commercial fishermen and otherbusinesses, in May.

“We asked 15 questions,” said Webb.

He said those ranged from what businesses thought of communicationfrom the government and from BP to whether the businesses haveavailable financing to get through the spill. The initial responsefrom many business owners was simply one of fear, and commonlyincluded a response of “I don’t know,” said Webb.

When the team conducted follow-up calls three weeks later, theresponse had changed from fear to anger and resentment, hesaid.

“We were probably pulling out of the recession, and then the spillhappened,” Webb said.

The loss of revenue for many businesses has been staggering,according to reports compiled by the university.

According to those reports, charter boats lost up to 90 percent oftheir revenue, with fishermen losing up to 100 percent of theirrevenue, Webb said. Boat suppliers have lost 65 to 70 percent oftheir revenue, and non-casino hotels have lost around 50 percent oftheir revenue.

Seafood restaurants have also absorbed a major hit since the oilspill. Those restaurants have seen a loss of about 30 percent inrevenue, a major decline in the sale of seafood, and a rise in thesale of other foods, he said.

“They’ve had to make price hikes, and then take a loss,” Webbsaid.

The lost sales have amounted to almost $120 million dollars in thetourism sector alone, with an additional total tax loss of morethan $22 million dollars, according to the reports.

The only bright spot in those numbers is that the net impact of theassistance from the government and BP, along with the economicimpact of the arrival of many volunteers and clean-up workers, hasnot yet been assessed, Webb said.

BP, which set aside $8 billion for the oil spill crisis, hashandled more than 4,000 claims, with almost $6 million paid outalready, he said.

“It’s unknown if the volunteers, federal assistance and BP moneywill offset the economic damage,” said Webb.

It’s also unknown if the “brand image” of Mississippi ispermanently damaged, said Webb.

“Tourism was already down after Katrina, and then this happened,”he said.

The drop in tourism, which is one of the major economic forces onthe Coast, can largely be credited to the national media and itsunnecessarily pessimistic coverage that made the actual spill seemworse than it was, said Webb.

To help offset the bad press and restore tourism, the MississippiDevelopment Authority has been running advertisements about theCoast. Those advertisements are paid for by BP, which gave $15million to the state to promote advertising, he said.

Now, all coastal residents can do is wait and see what will happen,Webb said.

“Only time will tell,” he said.