BP's Gulf oil spill threatened Pensacola Beach, Fla., today, according to various reports, as tourism officials some 800 miles southeast in the Florida Keys reported a robust Memorial Day weekend for vacationers in southernmost Florida.
This Google Map shows the locations of the two destinations.
The Miami Herald reported that a mass of tar balls was spotted about 10 miles from Pensacola at noon today, while the "primary oil plume" from the spill was about 35 miles in the distance.
VisitFlorida.com routinely has webcams set up for destinations in the state, and here's one, which this afternoon showed Pensacola Beach fairly busy with sun-lovers.
Here's a still image of what the webcam picked up today in the early afternoon.
Hopefully, the oil forecasters will be off in their estimates and the tar balls will miss the beach.
Meanwhile, the Florida Keys & Key West Tourism Council says June, July and August bookings have been hurt by adverse publicity about the oil spill.
Billy Causey, superintendent of the southeast region for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Sanctuaries, said the Keys have yet to feel any physical impact from the oil spill.
"The bulk of the oil remains well away from the Keys and close to the spill site, which is almost 500 miles to the northwest of Key West," Causey said.
Tourism officials said most lodging properties in the Keys were full or near-full over the Memorial Day weekend, although many of the bookings were last-minute in nature, with tourists waiting to see which way the oil and tar balls would drift.
With impacts varying, it appears that tourism to Gulf coast vacation areas is being tarnished with too broad a brush.