MOBILE, Ala. — Public safety and economic impact topped the lists of concerns voiced Thursday by local officials bracing for landfall of oil leaking from BP’s Deep Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana.

More than three dozen public works, emergency management and elected officials from across Baldwin and Mobile counties convened at the U.S. Coast Guard training building at Mobile’s Brookley Complex Thursday for a briefing on the creation of a unified command to address the expanding oil slick currently encroaching on the coasts of Louisiana and western Mississippi.

The Mobile command post joins existing operations at Roberts, Miss., and Homa, La.

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Steve Poulin, incident coordinator and sector commander for Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration models do not indicate the oil making landfall along Alabama’s shoreline within the next 72 hours, but all eyes watching the situation are monitoring even the slightest shifts in winds and currents closely.

Poulin also stated repeatedly during the briefing that BP is the “responsible party” in this incident, and the Coast Guard is acting in an oversight capacity to help coordinate deployment of available resources to the most critically affected areas.

Poulin said Alabama shores benefited from north winds in the days immediately following the explosion that pushed the slick almost 70 miles south of Dauphin Island. With winds shifting to the southeast, however, the migration toward land has resumed.

“We are preparing for shoreline impact,” Poulin said, noting there is still no indication of when that event might take place.

The primary objective remains arresting the leak at its source and “attacking the spread at sea,” but weather conditions mandate proactive measures in order to minimize impact in the coming days.

“We have a booming strategy for coastal Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle,” Poulin said. Critical areas identified in the Area Contingency Plan will be given priority in order to minimize environmental damage.

At the time of the briefing, almost 500,000 booms — or absorbent sausage-shaped materials — had been staged across the Alabama, Mississippi and Florida coastline, including 89,000 staged in the Theordore area outside Mobile awaiting deployment to Dauphin Island.

Poulin said skimmers are also being positioned to scoop oil, but until it is determined what type of oil might accumulate along the shores, it is too early to say how effective the method will be.

Herb Malone, president and CEO of the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, asked if disaster coordinators could offer any indication of a timeline for cleanup, considering the far-reaching impact the event will have across the coastal community.

Rob Knanishu, deputy on scene for BP, said the answer depends entirely on when the oil makes landfall and in what form and quantities, but based on the NOAA data available the cleanup efforts would take “weeks to months” if it had already occurred.

Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright questioned the protocol for cash-strapped municipalities proceeding with cleanup efforts out of their own pockets, especially considering the financial devastation the incident is going to cause for his residents.

“Bayou La Batre is a working community. My people make their living on this water. If we boom the waters, they’re out of work. How are our people going to survive,” he asked, noting the majority are self-employed and will have no unemployment checks to fall back on.

“They make their living only by what they harvest,” he said, urging officials to keep people affected apprised of the situation in the same fashion used for hurricanes.

Neil Geary, the BP public information officer on site, said protocols for reimbursement are still being worked out at this point and referred Wright to the continually updated Web site, www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com, tracking recovery efforts.

Wright responded:  “Half my people ain’t got electricity, let alone a Web site. Y’all need to let us know everything.”

Knanishu said all efforts would be taken to ascertain municipal reimbursement rates and schedules as quickly as possible, but he also noted the briefing was taking place within 24 hours of establishing the unified command, so the flow of information is only beginning.

In response to Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier’s inquiry, Philip Woods, on-scene coordinator for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, said his office initiated sampling Wedneday to monitor water quality and safety levels.

Baldwin County Administrator Mike Compton said he understands BP is being held responsible for the oil leak, but he asked for a clearer definition of who will be held responsible for the lasting negative impact the situation creates.

“Who will be responsible for 50 percent of restaurants going out of business in Gulf Shores?” Compton asked.

Geary said BP’s priority at the moment remains cleanup and then a framework through which claims can be processed will be established, but it is too early to gain a realistic snapshot of the potential economic impacts.

“We can’t fully define something that at this moment does not yet exist,” Geary said.

Collier, who said he received conflicting reports upon leaving Dauphin Island to attend the meeting of which areas were receiving booms, said the barrier island is particularly vulnerable financially, with cancellations on vacation rentals beginning as early as Thursday morning.

“In all honesty, we’re still recovering from (Hurricane) Katrina, and we just paid another $500,000 out of pocket to clean up Ida last November, so this is a real concern for us,” Collier said.