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This weekend marks the end of the tourism season in the Florida Panhandle and it has been a rough one. The BP oil spill on April 20th, ruined most of the summer for panhandle hotels and restaurants, even though little to no oil washed up on Florida beaches. As Whitney Ray tells us, the coast is clear but the economic damages remain… and getting BP to pay claims is getting even tougher.

These are pictures of Pensacola Beach at the height of the BP oil leak crisis… but it might as well have been Panama City, Daytona or Amelia Island. A recent survey showed as many as one in five travelers won’t travel to Naples, Clearwater, or even Fort Lauderdale because of the oil.

“The Perception versus reality was the thing we were battling from day one. The day the rig exploded,” said Chris Thompson, CEO of Visit Florida.

The oil also forced fishermen to put down their rods. In May BP began cutting checks to some Floridians who lost work because of the oil leak. BP paid 61 million dollars in claims through mid August.

Then on August 23rd the oil giant handed the checkbook over to Ken Fienberg, a New York Attorney charged with speeding up the claims process. So far Fienberg has paid just 17 million dollars to Floridians. The Oil Spill Recovery Taskforce is livid at the slow pace.

“We have a lot of questions, we are asking him to come back in front of the taskforce,” said George Sheldon, Taskforce member.

Fienberg is requiring people filing claims to fill out 18 pages of paperwork, even if they’ve already submitted their paperwork to BP. State Senator Al Lawson calls the process cumbersome and wants the state legislature to fix the problem in a special session.

“We need to put people first and not the political agenda of the speaker or senate president,” said Lawson.

But when the legislature was forced back into special session in July they choose to gavel and go, promising to return in September to work on oil issues. Now legislative leaders say, there’s no need. The Gulf Oil Spill Taskforce is asking Feinberg attend the next meeting and answer questions about the claims process, but the taskforce doesn’t meet for another month and many of the members want answers now.