Posted on 08/31/2005 2:15:18 PM PDT by HAL9000
It could take months for maritime commerce in south Louisiana along the Mississippi River to return to pre-Hurricane Katrina levels, said the director of the Port of New Orleans.“In Plaquemines Parish, they can’t even tell where the ship channel was,” said Gary LaGrange, head of the New Orleans port. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is so busy trying to repair the levees around New Orleans that they can’t release the personnel to go out to Southwest Pass and map the channel.”
LaGrange, who was temporarily working out of the Port of West St. Mary Wednesday, said he surveyed the New Orleans port after Hurricane Katrina hit and “it wasn’t that good, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.”
“If we had the personnel and the electricity, we could offload a ship today,” he said.
But people and electricity are in short supply in flood-ravaged New Orleans. LaGrange said many of the 350 people who worked at the port fled the city in advance of Hurricane Katrina. “They’re in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis,” he said.
And most of the employees lost their homes and belongings in the hurricane.
“Even when they get back, we’re going to have to allow them some time to take care of their personal lives,” LaGrange said.
LaGrange said he expects most of the cargo that would have been shipped into New Orleans or shipped out of the port will shift over to Houston, since it’s the nearest large container port.
Great.
Months.
We'll have butt-loads of fall harvest with nowhere to go.
Do we have any spare Aircraft Carriers? Lots of power there.
The article says it will go to Houston.
Trains..and trucks...and with fuel prices...
Farmers will have to sell cheap and the added cost
at the store will be fuel costs..
Got canning equipment?
I recall after 9-11, hearing the MSMnaysayers, that clearing 0 zone was going to take months if not a year, and look, the sheer will of the AMERICAN people had that place cleaned out and sorted in what, 3+months or so? The media are such drama queens, I predict the folk will come through again and put a stake through the naysayers heart ONCE again! Rush said it and I'll say it too, the MSMwhores underestimate the WILL of the American spirit!! We are donating to the Salvation Army and I encourage everyone to do the same! We were kicked in the teeth by mother nature, but our spirit is still intacted to defy the odds!!
National economic implications?
Houston, Miami, and Tampa can handle the extra volume...may have to fire up old port Charleston, too. Ports are NOT at capacity. We're OK on that front.
The refineries are a different story. The Greens have had new refinery construction shut down for far too long; now we'll pay for their foolishness.
What about grain shipments etc down the Mississippi?
I would suggest send them to Chicago (via the Chicago S&S) or to Mobile (via the Tenn-Tombigbee). It depends on where the facilities to handle that type of cargo are.
Trucks and trains can handle the transport switch. Roads and rails are still quite viable.
The key problem is the short-term lack of refinery capacity for fuel. We've got everything else covered in the big picture, save for regional disruptions (e.g. search and rescue for people).
Bush calling a waiver on regional fuel blend regs will be a big help, by making gasoline and diesel a fungible commodity again.
Yes, it will help. This is not going to be painfree, however.
We've needed new crude oil refineries for decades, and we've needed new coal oil to gasoline refineries since 9/11/2001 (our reserve fuel is coal, after all). The greens have stopped all of those new refineries.
When the gasoline runs out in Alabama tomorrow, you'll start to hear the cries against such "enviro" nonsense. Meridian Mississippi is already out of fuel.
It's going to take 7 to 10 days to get the 4 Gulf Coast gasoline refineries back on-line to start alleviating this shortage. We could have two or more weeks of "scarce" gasoline, hopefully less.
Stocks are less of a problem, though, than is distribution. Both the Colonial and Plantation pipelines were shut down by Katrina.
There was an earlier report, however, that Colonial would re-open around midnight and they expected to be operating initially at 35% capacity.
That's the first good news there's been in a while, isn't it? The first baby steps toward rebuilding...
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