NEW ORLEANS — The Coast Guard has interrupted shipping along the country’s busiest inland waterway over fears that the bulging Mississippi River could strain levees that protect hundreds of thousands from flooding. Already, thousands have sought refuge from floodwaters up and down the river.
The Coast Guard said it closed the Mississippi River at the port in Natchez, Miss., because barge traffic could increase pressure on the levees and because of fears that barges couldn’t operate safely in the flooded river. Heavy flooding from Mississippi tributaries has displaced more than 4,000 in the state, about half of them upstream from Natchez in the Vicksburg area.
Several barges were idled at Natchez at the time of the closure, and many more could back up along the major artery for moving grain from farms in the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn’t clear when the river would reopen, but port officials said the interruption could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of millions of dollars per day.
The closure is the latest high-stakes decision made to protect homes and businesses that sit behind levees and floodwalls along the river. To take pressure off levees surrounding heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Army Corps of Engineers opened the key Morganza Spillway, choosing to flood more rural areas with fewer homes. Another spillway near New Orleans was opened earlier, but it doesn’t threaten homes.
Most residents in the path of the Morganza’s floodwaters have heeded the call to leave their homes, with an estimated 4,800 people evacuated across the state. Bernadine Turner, who lives in a mandatory evacuation zone near Krotz Springs, La., spent a third day Monday moving her things out. It could take several days for floodwaters to reach her town about 40 miles west of Baton Rouge.
“There’s no doubt it’s going to come up. We don’t have flood insurance, and most people here don’t. Man, it would be hard to start all over,” she said.
Economic pain from the flooding could be felt far from the South because of the river closure. During the spring, the Mississippi is a highway for towboats pushing barges laden with corn, soybeans and other crops brought down from the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi river systems. Farm products come down the river to a port near New Orleans to be loaded onto massive grain carriers for export.
The Port of South Louisiana is the largest grain port the country, handling about 54 percent of U.S. exports. The port’s operations director, Mitch Smith, said the extent of the impact from the Natchez closing will depend on how long it lasts and how many barges are trapped upriver.
“Definitely, if it is a long closure, we will feel an economic impact,” Mr. Smith said.
At least 10 freight terminals along the lower Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans have suspended operations because of the high water, said Roy Gonzalez, acting president of the Gulf States Maritime Association. In many instances, their docks are already at water level or going under, he said.
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