cover their losses. cattle owners stand to take a serious hit. they are having to feed their cows more expensive feed which is raising beef prices. the drought has also lowered the water level of the mississippi river, obviously a key cargo route through the midwest and all the way down south and today officials shut down river traffic in two locations after they say barges ran aground in wisconsin and mississippi. these pictures show just how low the water level has fallen in recent weeks. snarling shipments of all sorts of cargo. along with historic drought, sweltering summer heat for folks across the country, today temperature topping 110 in some places. a look at the heat indexes, excessive heat warnings and advisories in effect now. look at the center, poor oklahoma city. forecasters say they expect some relief over the weekend. and weather alert now as tropical storm ernesto picks up speed in the atlantic it got named today. the national hurricane center reports the storm is movi
five generations at the jm jones lumber company, but i find him strictly in the business of surviving. building up and trying to hold together a levee that keeps his family s business from being swept away. are you confident you can hold the river back? absolutely not. no, i mean, i m confident that it s not going to go over my levees, but i m not confident that enough of this is going to cave off and i m going to have a breach. i would say it s 50/50. reporter: it s been four weeks since lumber operation ceased and all resources went into building up the company s existing levee. up to eight feet higher in some places. now they re constantly plugging, bag, and patching what the river gouges away. you can tell this is a patch deal here. our primary tarp was ripped. reporter: confounding the problem, river traffic. boats pushing barges upstream
normal. and he i couldn t say it better than him. he said this stuff is nasty. they re really concerned about that. they have security concerns as well because in vicksburg, near here, officials are saying they re patrolling the streets night and day with police and sheriff s deputies to make sure abandoned homes and businesses aren t broken into. that could be a concern for many weeks to come because we re told these waters may not go back to the banks of the mississippi for almost another month. all right, our brian todd reporting from near redwood, miss miss. what a mess. thank you, and please stay safe. let s turn to jacqui jeras in the cnn severe weather center. how worried should be people be about the rain in the forecast? they should be worried. in terms of the mississippi river at this time, if it s 3 to 6 inches of rainfall, it s probably not enough to bring the crest up, but it s some of the smaller tributaries that lead into them that we could have problem.
reporter: it s been four weeks since lumber operations seized and all resources went into building at the company s existing levee. up to eight feet higher in some places. now, they re constantly plugging, bagging and patching what the river gouges away. you can tell this is a patch deal here. we, our primary tarp was ripped. reporter: compounding the problem, river traffic, boats pushing barges upstream stir up waves that jones says has been doing some real damage. pounding away fragile dirt out of these levees. he calls it a battle of attrition because this water is going to stay high for weeks. the coast guard stepped in slowing boats down to a crawl. keeping them to the middle of the channel and spacing them far apart. a small bit of comfort for a family with five generations of success and a proud legacy at the mercy of a river. very humbling. very humbling and i think about
could easily happen. reporter: without the diversion of massive amounts of water by the army corps of engineers, this flood would soon be pushing water over the new orleans levees. with the morganza spillway opening, the rising mississippi is abruptly cresting here a week early. at 17 feet, it is still just 3 feet from going over the top. just 3 feet from the top. that still sounds like a near miss to me. well, again, it is we re watching this very careful. we are not out of the woods yet. reporter: and that, in part, is because of what the flood could do to commerce at this major port. if this water comes up just one more foot, then the coast guard could have to make the decision to shut down river traffic. if that happens, city officials say it would bring an economic impact of $295 million a day. these levees on the mississippi river get tested by seasonal floods every couple of years.