Immediate impacts:
- Morgan City destroyed, over a thousand people drowned.
- All road, rail, and pipeline crossings south of the ORCS are washed out
- - Traffic has to detour hundreds of miles north via Natchez or Vicksburg.
- - Broken pipelines cause nationwide disruptions in natural gas supplies.
- The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway is closed at the Atchafalaya.
By late summer:
- Brownouts along East Coast, as peaking power becomes unavailable due to natural gas shortages.
- Ammonia fertilizer shortages (also due to natural gas shortages) ahead of fall planting.
- Old River channel is down to 1/4 of normal flow, and has to be closed to barge traffic.
- Atchafalaya channel is still much too turbulent and dangerous for navigation
By fall harvest:
- Lack of fertilizer and shipping (plus previous Soviet buying) leads to massive spike in grain prices and worldwide unrest.
- Lack of cooling water forces refinery and chemical plant shutdowns along Old River channel.
- - Shortages and price increases for all petrochemical-based products, from gasoline and diesel fuel to housepaint and insect spray.
The shortages and price spikes will play hell with the Nixon Administration's attempts at wage and price controls.
The blackouts and economic instability will probably spark riots (especially in New Orleans, where a third of the workforce has been temporarily laid off, and water rationing is in effect.
Kazmann, Raphael G. and David B. Johnson. 1980. "If The Old River Control Structure Fails?"
http://www.lwrri.lsu.edu/downloads/L...I_B12_1980.pdf
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