Though President Barack Obama was less than a mile away, most residents of Grand Isle, La., never got to see his face. Some barely got to see his car.

Led by a convoy of more than 20 police motorbikes and flanked by armored cars and trucks, Obama was escorted Friday to a beach in Port Fourchon, La., before riding quickly through the streets of Grand Isle to give a short press conference at the town’s Coast Guard station.

Crowds of Grand Isle residents filtered out of their beachside homes as the commander in chief’s motorcade drove by. They waved and smiled into the car’s black-tinted windows.

The scene directly outside the Coast Guard press briefing was equally crowded. Photographers, reporters and residents camped out on the side of the road perched in the backs of their SUVs, popped the tops off beer bottles, and waved signs at the passing fleet, hoping to send a message to the president himself.
One man even pitched his own invention from the back of his pickup truck — a solvent designed to clean oil.

With acoustic guitars at the ready and “Support Green” pins affixed to their summer clothing, Jo Billups and Karen Harvill came to sing — and they didn’t mind the extra press.

“We want to send a green singing telegram to BP,” Billups said. “We are not the U.S. of BP. We want the government to step in and we want the Gulf restored. We wanted the president to see us. If this isn’t a wakeup call, there won’t be another one.”

Jonathan Henderson, who lives in New Orleans, but traveled to Grand Isle when he heard about the president’s visit, raised a white sign to the sky that read, “Clean up the Gulf,” with black letters drawn like dripping oil.

Earlier on the beach at Port Fourchon, Obama got a look at the impact of the BP oil spill on the shores. The president knelt on the beach and picked up nickel-sized tar balls, some of which could be the direct effect of oil washing up and solidifying.

“So either the boom soaks stuff up or manually you can pick up these tar balls as they’re coming ashore,” Obama said. “But obviously the concern is, is that until we actually stop the flow, we’ve got problems.”

Henderson, an organizer for the Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental activist organization, said he was happy to see Obama become a more active participant in solving the Gulf crisis.

At 2:20 p.m., Obama’s fleet rode out of the station and to a nearby helipad. As Obama’s helicopter flew away, Henderson once again raised his anti-oil sign.

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