The dry weather provoked a drop in the water level in the Mississippi River to an all-time low, which threatens the United States with an economic crisis.
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“The sight here is absolutely deplorable. Due to the increasing drought, areas that were once part of the Mississippi riverbed have now become its banks. On a normal day, the water level in the Mississippi should be somewhere 4.5-6 meters above my head. And now the water in this wide river is at a dangerously low level,” the journalist says.
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Severe droughts brought Mississippi to its knees, which caused the movement of barges with agricultural products and steel to slow down or stop altogether.
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Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Mary Gilday called the situation “bad.”
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“We know how important an economic impact all this has on the United States. With the current forecasts, I do not see that the situation is somehow improving,” she said.
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Thanks to Mississippi, the $12.6 billion trucking industry is functioning, which creates tens of thousands of jobs, NBC points out. In addition, 60 percent of all grain exported from the United States is transported along this river. However, at the moment 127 vessels and more than 1.8 thousand barges are idle on closed waterways.
