ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Hundreds of Gulf Coast residents and business owners packed into the gymnasium at the Orange Beach Community Center Tuesday to hear from Gulf Coast Claims Facility leader Ken Feinberg.

Elected officials from Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Pensacola, Louisiana and U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile were all on hand — some to speak, some to listen, but all to get answers.

“I’m glad to be back here,” Feinberg told the crowd. “I will come back again and again to listen to you.”

During his introductory comments, Feinberg explained where everything stood in regards to the claims process.

“The Gulf Coast Claims Facility emergency payment program is over, it ended Nov. 23,” Feinberg explained. “We are now entering a new phase of the program.”

Feinberg said that everyone who believes they have a claim has one of three options.

Option 1 – Final Payment

“Anybody who wants to file a claim for a final payment, for all past, present and future damage may do so.”

Feinberg said that 70,000 claimants along the Gulf Coast had already filed such a claim, requesting a final payment.

“The final payment program will start making payments next month for anybody who feels they are ready to accept a lump sum check. That’s it.”

If this option is chosen, the claimants will waive their right to sue anybody associated with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill incident.

Option 2 – Interim Payment

“For those individuals who are not ready to accept a final payment, who are worried about the future of the Gulf, who aren’t yet ready to predict what the future holds or to give up their right to sue, those individuals can opt for an interim payment.”

If someone chooses this option, they would document their damages each quarter, would get a claims check, would not be required to give up their right to sue, and may come back every three months for another payment.

“About 15,000 people have already filed, using this option,” said Feinberg.

As in the first option, payments for claims in option two will begin being paid next month.

Option 3 – Quick Claim

“Anybody who feels they have already received adequate emergency payment or anybody who cannot document any further damage, can opt for this option,” Feinberg said. “If you are an individual and you received an emergency payment, even for $1, check off the box and within two weeks you will receive $5,000. If you are a business and you received an emergency payment, check off the box and you will receive $25,000.”

Like in option one, claimants waive their right to sue, and according to Feinberg, 80,000 people have already chosen this option when filing their claim, including 12,000 people in the State of Alabama.

 Feinberg also mentioned that some people who received an emergency payment are claiming that the amount was inaccurate. He assured the crowd that when they filed for either the final payment or the interim payment, the claims facility would revisit the amount of the emergency payment that was initially given.

There were heated moments during the meeting between Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon and Feinberg. While making a statement regarding how the claims process was not working, Feinberg told Kennon that since his time was limited, he wanted to hear from the people.

Kennon replied that, “Once you become Mayor of Orange Beach then you can decide how the meeting will be run,” which was met by huge applause.

In addition to Kennon, Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, Fla,, Gulf Shores Councilman Jason Dyken and Sessions also addressed Feinberg and the crowd.

Dyken commended Feinberg for the payments that had been made but reminded him that 70 percent of the claims had still not been paid.

“You’ve given $300 million to Baldwin County. That’s monumental,” Dyken told Feinberg. “The problem I have with that is, in Baldwin County we estimated that we had between $800 million and $1 billion dollars of loss. By my math, that means you have paid 30 percent in claims. Seventy percent of the claims have not been paid. Where I went to school, that is an F.”

Dyken said that in Baldwin County, 57 percent of claims have not been paid.

“What I see here is a lot of people who are on the brink of losing everything that they have worked their entire life for,” said Dyken. “We don’t need two weeks and we don’t need a month. We have got to have payment, we have got to be made whole, and we have got to have it done now.”

Feinberg assured the audience that the GCCF was working as fast as they could to pay claims, and reminded everyone that more that 100,000 claims that were filed had no documentation whatsoever.