As oil spills go, this is hardly the worst that Santa Barbara County has faced. The area has long had the unlikely juxtaposition of stunning beaches and hills facing oil derricks out in the water. As of Thursday afternoon, it appeared that 21,000 gallons of oil had spilled into the water from the broken pipe before it was shut down, a far cry from the three million gallons lost in a 1969 spill that has been widely credited with starting the environmental movement.

Yet the distress was real, etched in the faces of longtime residents and on once-pristine beaches stained with oil. Damage to wildlife seemed limited so far, but with the oil slick stretching to nine miles along the coast, concern was high that more damage could be done. Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in this region on Wednesday evening.

For this tourism-dependent area, the response has been split between heartfelt environmental concern and fear that outsiders will get the wrong idea and stay away, even though the spill is northwest of Santa Barbara and the city is unaffected. “We hope the media can start to parse the issue of where the location is, so we don’t have the economic impact,” said Ken Oplinger, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Santa Barbara Region.

Aaron and Kate Dulmaine of Boston were camping in El Capitan Canyon before a wedding they planned to attend. “We flew into San Francisco and heard people talking about it, but it didn’t seem real and we didn’t know where it was,” Ms. Dulmaine said.