Business View Civil Municipal - July 2023

210 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7 just 10 years, the population has boomed from some 5,500 full-time residents to about 8,500. The zenith of peak season comes during and around July 4, when the tourist influx swells the population to more than 100,000 on any given day, Handley informed. “We have about 10,000 condo units in the city,” he added. “Tourism is a major economic driver.” Nine years of progress Handley has worked for the City of Orange Beach since 2014. He became its finance director in 2017, and he started his current positions in January. For all the Gulf Coast, 2010 was an annus horribilis. That’s when the BP oil spill occurred off the Louisiana coast, causing a nightmarish impact upon wildlife and countless fishermen and others who make their living from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. As you’d expect, Louisiana sustained the worst effects from the spill, and Alabama, with its much smaller shoreline, was spared the brunt of this disaster but still had crude oil wash ashore,