The mighty Miss is drying up...

[gunnerbob]

The Mississippi River Is Drying Up

 

[fstroupe]

I worked on the Mississippi River 1979-1984. Though the level didn't get this low then, it has been before.

No one has ever really realizes the volume of commodities that travel the inland waterways. Each 200' x 35' grain barge holds as much grain as 13-15 covered hopper railroad cars. Each 20 barge southbound tow carrying grain carries 280 railroad cars of grain, each 25 barge tows carry 300 cars worth. The railroads are already carrying capacity. There are hundreds of towboats constantly making the approximately 10-day round trip from St. Louis to New Orleans. (most grain comes to St. Louis via the Upper Mississippi River and Missouri River pushed by smaller boats, then pushed by larger boats from St. Louis to NO, where the grain is loaded onto ships) Coal, ammonia, alcohol, molasses, human waste, various chemicals, and petroleum products also travel on the inland waterways.

A bright side is that due to the drought, there won't be as much grain to carry, so grain now stored in elevators that won't be shipped downriver will not affect storage of new grain as much. lol

 

[Rhino]

The new danger. Global Drying.

 

[Firefighterchen]

Pretty interesting guys, didn't realize how important they were. I have a new found respect for shipping boat captains. If it's not all ready a mandatory notification, I shall now give my ccw to all captains I come into contact with and tell them I have a gun, after all they just want to go home safe after their tour.

 

[golocx4]

As the crow flies, I grew up about about 2 miles away from the river. Used to listen to the tug whistles on hot summer nights.
We had a company that actually built the tow boats near by. Got to go to a christening of a boat once as security. Pretty interesting.
I can remember droughts and low levels in the past and I can also remember filling sand bags on our street and never saw so much water.
Cycles come and go.
Still gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Warm winters like last year don't bother me. When we start getting cold summers, then it is time to panic.

 

[fstroupe]

Pretty interesting guys, didn't realize how important they were. I have a new found respect for shipping boat captains. If it's not all ready a mandatory notification, I shall now give my ccw to all captains I come into contact with and tell them I have a gun, after all they just want to go home safe after their tour.

Not sure of the current laws, but at one time Merchant Marine captains could be armed, the only person on the ship that could. Towboat captains fall under many but not all of the same maritime laws that Merchant Marine captains fall under.....so those captains might be armed themselves. Probably are anyway.

My company did not allow firearms on the boats. But considering that most captains/pilots I knew were gun enthusiasts, and most of the crew members were bar hoppers, as often as not there were guns on the boat, though mostly various pocket pistols of the day. Most of us lived within 150 or so miles of each other, so lots of buying, selling, and trading took place. I made probably the stupidest trade I ever made at that time, trading a 444 Marlin for a Universal .30 Carbine. I still have the Bushnell scope that was on the Carbine though, and it is still an awesome scope for any price.

One captain usually brought his RWS high-performance air rifle, which was pretty darn accurate shooting crows and pigeons at 100-120 yds. I don't recall ever bringing a gun, I always brought about a dozen books to read and usually a guitar.