The U.S. Coast Guard said this morning that Mississippi River barge traffic will resume today, after it backed up this week near Memphis, Tennessee, when inspectors on May 11 discovered “a significant fracture” in a support beam of the Hernando de Soto Bridge (Interstate 40), spanning the Mississippi River into Arkansas. The crack is so serious, the inspectors dialed 911 to get the police to stop car traffic, and the Coast Guard to shut down river traffic.
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Ryan Rhodes said, “As of 9 a.m. CT Friday, we’ve opened up the river to commerce on the water. At last count, there were 39 northbound vessels carrying 981 barges. There were 28 southbound vessels with 477 barges lined up.” It was determined that the bridge was stable enough to allow water traffic underneath.
Sure, inspections are to find problems, but this instance exemplifies the sorry state of U.S. infrastructure, which has next to no redundancy. One-third of the bridges in the U.S. are considered deficient, and some of them dangerously so. Repairing the Hernando de Soto Bridge involves specialty steel not readily available. Completing the job is projected to take a couple months.
Agriculture shipments will be hard hit by this week’s Mississippi barge delays. Over 45% of U.S. agricultural exports go this route, out through New Orleans. Corn is especially hard hit. Fortunately, a lot of fertilizer has already been shipped northward.
Because of serious disruptions in the tight supply chains, speculators went ape on the Chicago Merc yesterday, with corn hitting its daily limit, down by 40 cents a bushel.
