Hard Times Wash Up Before BP Oil in Gulf Coast Towns, Bayous
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It’s supposed to be high season in Biloxi, Mississippi, but George Griffith stands on a stretch of beach where seagulls, tacking into a bullying southeast wind, easily outnumber the dozen or so die-hard tourists testing the surf.
“Look, nobody’s here,” says Griffith, one eye on a bruise-blue rainstorm gathering offshore. Griffith knows the ebb and flow of this place well. In 1986, the 47-year-old Iowa native abandoned Midwestern winters for these warm and sugar- sanded shores. He spent the past 13 years working his way up to manager of R.A. Lesso Seafood, a longtime, family-owned Biloxi shrimp processor.