Trade Slows as the Mississippi River Floods

The first signs that Captain Cory F. Heitmeier was in for an unsettling day's work on the Mississippi came before he even boarded a boat on May 17. At the dock where the river pilot waited to catch a crewboat to a Panamanian-flagged freighter, a paved driveway was already covered with floodwater. Gravel had been poured on top to make a makeshift road.

Heitmeier and his fellow pilots help guide the 448 million tons of cargo that pass through the mouth of the Mississippi each year. On the best of days, the job is tricky. The fourth-longest river on the planet is full of shifting currents, submerged hazards, and constant traffic. As rain and snow flowed down from the north, the river at New Orleans crested the day before Heitmeier met the freighter. His job had become treacherous. "On the river, if you screw up, someone can get killed or you can wipe out an entire population," he says.