Not rolling on the river: Drought tests America’s main water highway

The exposure of the Mississippi River’s dry banks makes it look vulnerable, laid bare as a result of a monthslong drought across the U.S. heartland. In normal conditions, the river’s tributaries would help feed the historically reliable flow of its water for more than 2,300 miles as the river carves its way from its headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico’s emerald-green surface.

But today, where water usually stands along the river’s banks in New Orleans, mud cracks in the sun. It’s a challenge that begins hundreds of miles north, where water levels have been recorded at 30-year lows in some parts of the lower Mississippi