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American Morning

Barge Workers Talk About Mississippi River Flood

Aired April 27, 2001 - 11:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to go now to the Mississippi River Valley, where a lot rain has caused yet another crest to form up high. But a little farther downstream, in Iowa, the floodwaters are causing some side effects.

And our CNN's Jeff Flock now has the latest on what those are.

He's in Davenport, Iowa, today -- Jeff.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Stephen, I'm coming to you from a boat called the Phyllis. It is what they call a line boat.

Typically, it would be busy pushing barges up and down the Mississippi at this time of year, but right now, as perhaps you can see, it is parked, and that is because of these tremendously high river levels. Take a look out on the river, and you will see, up and down the Mississippi, barges that are tied off. Those are a load of barges trying to make their way up the Mississippi.

This is not good news for people like Vaughn McDaniel, who is with Blackhawk Fleet.

This is your operation out here. It's underwater, isn't it?.

VAUGHN MCDANIEL, BLACKHAWK FLEET: That's correct, it is underwater.

FLOCK: Your barge is going nowhere, for the foreseeable future.

MCDANIEL: That's correct. We understand conditions prevail such that we're looking at maybe three more weeks to get the river reopened.

FLOCK: Take a look out here. How much damage is being done to your operation? How quickly can you get it back on the air?

MCDANIEL: We're looking not so much in direct damage here, but just the loss of opportunity and a loss of business. We're, basically, shut down for another three weeks or so, when we get the water out of our parking lot.

FLOCK: Do you have a dollar figure per day?

MCDANIEL: We're probably looking at somewhere, for my operation alone, in the range of $20,000 a day.

FLOCK: Vaughn, we appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Somebody else's operation that's been affected is Mike Duncan. He's with Harvest State Cooperatives.

And over your shoulder, Mike, as we stand here and talk to you, I see a grain elevator, and you typically would be loading grain right now, right?.

MIKE DUNCAN, HARVEST STATE GRAINS: You bet. We would typically be in the middle part of the peak spring season. An operation like ours would be loading five or six grain barges a day at this time of year.

FLOCK: Are they giving you any information about how soon they think this water might be down and you're back in business?

DUNCAN: No concrete information. We kind of suspect that when we get down around 18 feet, which is a drop of about four feet, we'll be able to get back in business again.

FLOCK: That's going to be awhile.

I know we've got a shot of barges out here. These guys are waiting. We can tell the ones that are unloaded compared to the loaded ones because the ones that don't have anything in them sit up higher. They are waiting to come in and be loaded, correct?

DUNCAN: Yes, that's correct.

FLOCK: It's not a good thing when they're just sitting there.

DUNCAN: A lot of waiting, a lot of downtime. Commerce can't happen.

FLOCK: Mike, we appreciate it.

Before we get away, I do want to get inside and talk to Bruce Cary. He's inside the wheelhouse of this. It's great to come on in and see what the wheelhouse of one of these things looks like.

You'd really like to see this out on the river, wouldn't you?.

BRUCE CARY, ALTER BARGE LINE: Absolutely. We're not making any money sitting here.

FLOCK: One of the reasons this is shut down -- tell me the reasons this is shut down: You've got weight problems, as well as problems with the locks.

CARY: That's correct. We don't want to cause any wakes in the area. That could cause property damage, so the Coast Guard has closed it. That's the biggest reason we're down.

FLOCK: So you're okay with that, but it's not good business. CARY: It's good for the people that live around here, but it's not good for the economy here. We are not proving product up- or downriver now, and that will have long-range impacts.

FLOCK: How much can you recover from this? Can you just work harder? Can you move faster once the river's moving again?

CARY: We will work harder. We can't work much faster. There will still be a long tail on this. There will be slowly decreasing water, and there will be obstacles out there. We can't make it up. There's only so much time during the year before the ice comes again on the Upper.

FLOCK: And Rick, before we get away, I'm going to ask you to take a look down at your harbor boats down there. What are you doing to kill time right now? You're paying staff, so you want them to do something.

CARY: We're taking the opportunity to chip, paint, grind and put things in better shape, but we can only do that so long. I'm afraid we may be looking at layoffs if this continues.

FLOCK: Bruce, I appreciate it very much. Thank for this tour.

We're talking to you, as we said, Stephen and Daryn, from the wheelhouse of the Phyllis, which right now is pretty much dead in the water, just like the commerce up and down the Mississippi.

We'll, of course, continue to watch it and hope these folks get back to business sometime soon.

That's the latest from Davenport, Iowa. Back to you folks.

FRAZIER: Jeff Flock -- thank you, Jeff.

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