MEMPHIS FLOOD UPDATE: A musician friend emails: “I’m currently doing some seasonal work for the Memphis in May International Festival which takes place all month in Tom Lee Park on the river’s edge downtown. Just this week it was announced that the World Championship Barbecue Competition next weekend (which is one of the festival’s biggest events) would be moved to a new location, for the first time ever, because the river will be in the park itself very soon. This week we are busy evacuating to the fairgrounds. I’ve personally never seen a river look like the Mississippi does now. I had to run an errand in West Memphis, AR a couple of days ago and from I-40 across the bridge, you could see that the water covered what once were fields for over two miles west. Working in Tom Lee Park, every time a barge goes by, waves come up over what once was the river bank and deposit debris in the park. Pretty soon, barges will not have enough height clearance to pass under the I-55 bridge. I saw one yesterday that looked like it had about 2 or 3 feet of clearance. It is amazing.”

Of course, a shutdown in Mississippi barge traffic would have supply-chain consequences of all sorts.