LAFAYETTE — An estimated 10,000 people were in the Cajundome Wednesday for the Rally for Economic Survival and to send a message to President Barack Obama — “Let us go back to work.”

Lafayette Parish President Joey Durel said the greatest economic risk currently faced by Louisiana is not the BP oil spill, but the “manmade catastrophe” caused by the federal government’s six month moratorium against deepwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

With about 77,000 jobs directly and indirectly tied to drilling in the Gulf, which provides 35 percent of the oil and gas consumed in America, Durel said by preventing American’s from working, the moratorium goes against the “American way.”

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Gov. Bobby Jindal told the crowd about a recent meeting with Obama over the catastrophic impact the moratorium will have on the nation’s economy. Jindal said the president’s response was that if people lose jobs, they can file either a claim with BP or a claim for unemployment.

Jindal’s response: “We don’t want a BP check, or an unemployment check, our people want to go back to work.”

New Iberia resident Dawn Suggs said she attended the event to support America’s oil and gas workers, adding, “We need to go back to work because that’s what we do in Louisiana.”

Another New Iberia resident, Marlene Brown, said if the moratorium remains in place, local economies, beginning in Louisiana, will crumble like dominoes, one by one, until the overall national economy topples.

“If they don’t stop the moratorium the whole country is going to suffer,” she said.