dilloduck said:
I worked on a couple of tug boats in the Gulf and on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Florida from New Orleans. I have been on the Mississippi pushing barges in fog that prevented us from seeing over the bow. We could hear very large ships going by us but couldn't see them. The Mississippi isn't that wonderful to be on. I have also been in a squall line at night with 20-30 foot seas in the Gulf pulling a 120 foot barge on 300 feet of nylon rope, not much fun either but fewer things to hit. The ideal thing to do would be for the federal guys to dig a new waterway, a pilot channel, from Baton Rouge straight to the Gulf and bypass New Orleans. The threat to New Orleans has always been the Mississippi breaking it's levees and not only flooding NO but everything else downstream. This pilot channel would divert water from the Mississippi and ease that flood threat and also give barge and boat traffic a choice to continue the longer route to the Gulf down the Mississippi to NO or go south to the obviously superior Port of Houston.
What do you think powerguy?
