Officials Struggling to Reopen Mississippi

The Mississippi River’s main channel remained closed Monday, stranding dozens of commercial and cruise ships for a third day as officials searched for the crew of a sunken supply vessel and scrambled to remove its wreckage.

By Monday evening, the bodies of three of the missing men had been recovered, but officials expressed doubt that two others would be found alive. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Jeff Murphy said the bodies might be trapped in the sunken ship.

Meanwhile, contractors battling strong currents and a thunderous storm 80 miles southeast of New Orleans held out hope that they could get a strap around the ship’s stern to move it out of the commercial channel as early as today or Wednesday.

By Monday evening, nearly 100 ships filled with grain, coffee, plywood, natural gas and other goods were blocked from the Southwest Pass, the only route into and out of the Mississippi for large, oceangoing vessels.

Cruise ships carrying a combined 20,000 passengers were either docked indefinitely, altering their routes or meandering up and down the river “just to give the passengers a diversion,” said Gary LaGrange, director of the Port of New Orleans.

The channel has been closed since Saturday morning, when the Lee III, a 178-foot ship that ferries supplies and personnel to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, sank amid dense fog after colliding with the 534-foot Zim Mexico III, a commercial vessel. The accident is under investigation.

The Zim Mexico was damaged but reported no injuries. The Coast Guard identified the five men who had been reported missing from the Lee III as Lawrence Glass, 65, of Mobile, Ala.; Joseph Brown, 44, of Vidor, Texas; Daniel Lopez, 31, of Port Arthur, Texas; Ramon Norwood, 27, of Galveston, Texas; and Baldemar Villarreal, 54, of Lake Jackson, Texas.

Over the weekend, officials had postponed any effort to move the Lee III while they used helicopters and patrol boats to search for survivors. About 14 feet of the ship’s bow is poking up above the rushing water at the wreck site, LaGrange said. Although he said he understood that a search for survivors or bodies must take place before economic concerns could be addressed, he noted that time was of the essence.

Traffic at Louisiana’s seven deep-draft ports and 23 shallow-draft ports -- a complex commercial matrix that represents nearly a quarter of the state’s economy -- was backing up or shutting down.

“Historically, from the time that New Orleans was founded until today, the Mississippi River has been the lifeline of the city, the state and a region that extends all the way up to Missouri,” said Jim Amdal, director of the Merritt C. Becker Jr. Maritime and Intermodal Transportation Center at the University of New Orleans.

“The impact of this will be huge, not only in disrupting [maritime] traffic, but at the same time disrupting the traffic that is generated by the river traffic. Freight, rail, trucking -- everybody is going to get hit,” said Amdal, whose organization helps the state organize its transportation system.

“Until they get that ship removed from that very strategic position, we are basically held hostage,” Amdal said.

If the channel is closed long enough, the economic impact would ripple across the nation.

Louisiana’s ports are among the busiest in the world. An average of 16-plus oceangoing vessels move through the New Orleans area each day, or more than 6,000 a year.

Analysts said it was difficult to calculate how much of an effect the channel closure would have. However, one recent study indicated that the combined economic impact of Louisiana ports is $30 billion annually -- 22.5% of the state’s gross domestic product.

Before he became chancellor of the University of New Orleans last fall, Timothy P. Ryan was an economist who studied the port system of Louisiana. He said consumers could quickly feel the punch of the accident.

For example, he said, many commercial vessels ferry coal and other supplies to Midwestern states to use in the production of electricity.

When vessels are rerouted or forced to idle off the coast of Louisiana, they incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra costs, from fuel to insurance fees, Ryan said.

Once that happens, they will charge more money to utility companies that awaited those supplies. The utilities will pass the extra costs on to consumers, he added.

“What you’ve done is taken a significant transportation route out of service. It is as if there was a huge wreck on every interstate going in and out of Los Angeles. You can imagine what would happen,” Ryan said. “In the short run there will clearly be a disruption in commerce. The old saying -- time is money -- is especially true for oceangoing vessels.”

An immediate impact was felt by thousands of people who were waiting to embark on cruises from the New Orleans area.

Megan Weninger, a 24-year-old law student at the University of Michigan, helped organize a cruise for herself and 19 classmates.

The cruise, aboard Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas, was to have left last weekend on a seven-day, three-city tour of Mexican resort towns.

Some stranded passengers were taking forays into New Orleans -- battling the weather to shop and see the sights of Mardi Gras, which will reach its climax today. Others were playing cards on the deck or watching the film “Lost in Translation,” which the ship played in an attempt to appease frustrated guests.

“On Saturday it was fun,” Weninger said. “On Sunday it was less fun. Now we just want to go. People think they will never get out of here. When are we going to leave?”

Hart reported from New Orleans and Gold from Houston.