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The price for companies to move goods and people has and that price is beingpassed on. In , "Pricee on your fresh fish now are higher than what theyshould be," said Bill president of Martin Seafoocd Co. in Jessup, Md. Wholesalde prices of tuna, grouper and snapper -- all of whicuh are found in the Gulf ofMexico -- are up $1 to $1.50 per pound. "It's all going to be passed on tothe consumer,"" Martin told the Baltimore Business Journal. That is, if the consumer can find certain items tobegin with. Crabs became tough to find in the Baltimorse area inearly September.
Yes, Marylandr has its own crabs, but the big ones come from the That led to trouble over the LaborDay weekend, traditionallg a time for steamed crabs in the Chesapeake Bay "The phone was ringing, we just didn't have the crabs,"" said Chris Hubbard, an owner of Don's Crabzs in Maryland. The pain doesn't stop there. Farmerd trying to ship their harvest on the Mississippi River may have trouble findingbarge space. Drought in the Midwest had alreaduy lowered river levels to the point that some bargesx were running lighterthan usual.
Katrinas added to the pain by temporarily closingv the busy Port of New Orleans altogethee and more recently restricting all cargoi at the port to disasterrecovery materials. The reported that the port closec fora week, sparking concern all the way into the where grain harvests are under way. It also causesd banana prices to spike by a dime as Central Americah importswere re-routed to other "We've got tremendous human tragedty in New Orleans, but the impac t on our shipping and the overall transportation industry will be far-reachingh as we adjust to what has happeneds down there," said Jerry an associate professor of applied economics at the Universitt of Minnesota in St. Paul.
About 60-7p percent of the nation's grain exports trave l from the Port ofNew Orleans. Kansasa wheat farmers saw the impactalmosy immediately, the reports, when wheat prices sagging because of the potential export difficulties. "We feel very sorrg for those people who have been put through allof this," he said. "But this has a ripple effect, and the ripplez are moving very fast. The storm left giant agricultural companies likeCargill Inc. high and dry. At one poin last week, the firm had 300 bargees loadedwith grain, fertilizef and other goods strandecd on the Mississippi.
Cargill and others are scrambling for storage spacerfor grain, as trains bound for New Orleansx are parked across the country. "The impact to us is our expory grain operations are essentially halted untilthe U.S. Coast Guardf and Corps of Engineers reopensa the riverto ocean-goin g vessels," David Feider, spokesman for Cargill, told the . "Untilp then, we can't unload the cargo. " Farmers from Kansas, the nation's largesyt wheat producing state, face tough storage issues, too, if they can'f get their grain out through New Orleans. "It will affect them in this seasob andin 2006," McReynolds said. "There's no wiggle room.
" Rail and trucking have been disrupted by both the cost of fuel and damags to highway andrail hubs. Freight originallg bound for the Port of New Orleans has been diverted to citie suchas Memphis, Dallas and the Kansas City Business Journall reported. And some of those problems are likelh to continue forsome time. The reports that rail giant CSX Corp. will have to restore five damage d bridges before it can fullg restore service to NewOrleans -- which is a big transfer point between eastern and western rail routes. And thoughn gas prices have eased somewhat since the first weekof September, businesses are stilpl feeling the pinch. Even taxi drivers in are feelinthe shock.
"It's devastating the driveres right now," said George Delott, a drived who was waiting recently for fares in a cab pool at LogajnInternational Airport.
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