cruise ships and hurricane lee

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Flights canceled and cruise itineraries changed as Lee reaches New England, Canada

By Caitlin O'Kane

Updated on: September 16, 2023 / 7:01 PM EDT / CBS News

Lee made landfall in Canada on Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone, bringing heavy rainfall, powerful winds and storm surge to parts of New England and southeastern Canada. Some flights and cruises in those areas have been affected as the storm barreled up the Atlantic coast.

According to FlightAware, which tracks aviation , 117 flights at Boston's Logan International Airport had been canceled as of Saturday evening, following two dozen cancellations on Friday. Another 21 flights at Nantucket Airport and 12 at Martha's Vineyard Airport were also canceled Saturday.

Cape Air, which flies short flights to several Massachusetts airports and in the Caribbean, canceled 129 flights on Saturday after canceling another 45 on Friday, according to FlightAware.

American, Delta and  United Airlines  also offered waivers for flyers traveling to or from several airports in cities that are expected to be affected, including Bangor, Maine, and Boston. The travel days that were expected to be most affected in these areas were Saturday and Sunday. 

Those who are traveling to New England or Canada on these airlines can check if their change fee has been waived  on the airlines' websites.

Lee brought tropical storm conditions to Bermuda Thursday, prompting several airlines to offer waivers to travelers flying in and out of the island nation. Both American and Delta Airlines offered to waive change fees for flyers traveling to or from Bermuda on Thursday and Friday.

Flights were not the only mode of transportation being affected by the storm. Royal Caribbean altered the itineraries of four cruise ships ahead of the hurricane, including one that was scheduled to dock at a port in St. Maarten on Thursday, but did not due to the storm, according to the group that runs the port.

Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas ship was supposed to visit Halifax, Canada on Saturday, but instead spent the day in Manhattan after leaving from Cape Liberty in New Jersey on Friday, according to  Travel Market Report,  which monitors travel trends.

Norwegian Cruise Lines has also canceled the planned stops of its Norwegian Escape ship. After leaving Boston on Tuesday, the ship docked in Eastport, Main instead of Portland. It was supposed to go to Halifax, Canada, but instead will head to New York on on Sunday, where it will finish out the remaining two days of the cruise.

Prince Cruise lines has also diverted ships away from Halifax. Instead of stopping in the Canadian city on Thursday, the Emerald Princess left Saint John, Newfoundland and went straight to its homeport in Brooklyn, New York. It arrived one day earlier than expected, on Friday, a representative for the cruise line told CBS News via email. 

The cruise line's Caribbean Princess ship docked in Boston on Friday to brace for the storm. The rest of the itinerary for the 10-day cruise may also change due to weather. 

"We sincerely apologize for the disappointment and inconvenience these unexpected changes cause our guests, but greatly appreciate their patience and understanding as we prioritize everyone's safety," the representative said.

American Cruise Lines, which has several small ships in Portland, Bangor and New Bedford, Massachusetts, has docked all of its ships in the region ahead of the storm, a representative for the cruise line told CBS News via email. "Further itinerary adjustments will be made, as necessary, according to the weather," the representative said.

CBS News has reached out to these and other cruise lines for more information and is awaiting response. 

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Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

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TRAVEL & ITINERARY UPDATES

Travel update - labadee, haiti, last updated may 14, 2024 - 3:00pm edt.

All Labadee sailings through September 2024

We have suspended all visits to Labadee fleetwide through September 2024, and we continue to monitor the situation with our Global Security & Intelligence team. Please know that the safety and comfort of our guests are always our highest priority. We are committed to keeping you informed, and itinerary modifications are being communicated directly to guests ahead of their sailings. Please check back for any potential changes. Thank you for your understanding.

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• Cruise lines change itineraries as Hurricane Lee reaches New...

Cruise lines change itineraries as Hurricane Lee reaches New England USA and Canada

Post-tropical cyclone Lee arrived in Canada on Saturday, September 16th, ushering in heavy rainfall, potent winds, and storm surges affecting sectors of New England USA and southeastern Canada. This meteorological event led to disruptions in both flight and cruise schedules along the Atlantic coast.

In anticipation of the hurricane, RCI-Royal Caribbean enacted alterations to the itineraries of 4 vessels. Notably, one of these ships, originally destined for a Thursday port call in St. Maarten , had to forego its intended stop due to the storm, as reported by the port authorities. Specifically, Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas , which embarked from Cape Liberty in New Jersey on Friday, had originally planned to visit Halifax, Canada on Saturday. However, the ship found herself berthed in Manhattan instead.

NCL-Norwegian Cruise Line took parallel measures, canceling planned stops for its Norwegian Escape ship . Departing from Boston MA on a Tuesday, the vessel diverted to Eastport ME , instead of its initial destination, Portland. The route was further adjusted, foregoing Halifax, Canada, in favor of a Sunday arrival in New York, where the Escape concluded the remaining 2 days of the voyage.

Princess Cruises also altered its course away from Halifax. Emerald Princess , initially scheduled for a Thursday visit to the Canadian city, was redirected to her homeport in Brooklyn, New York, after departing from Saint John, Newfoundland , ultimately arriving a day earlier than scheduled, on Friday. Additionally, Caribbean Princess docked in Boston on Friday, anticipating the impending storm. The subsequent sections of the 10-day itinerary were subject to potential alterations due to adverse weather conditions. Princess' representative extended apologies for the unforeseen changes and inconveniences faced by passengers, while also expressing gratitude for their patience and understanding, underscoring the prioritization of safety.

Meanwhile, ACL-American Cruise Lines , with the presence of several small ships in Portland , Bangor ME , and New Bedford MA , took precautionary measures by docking all vessels in the affected region ahead of the storm. ACL's representative noted the possibility of further itinerary adjustments in response to evolving weather conditions.

Norwegian Cruise Line change New England itineraries due to Hurricane Lee

Three Norwegian Cruise Line ships, including one due to leave Boston, have been re-routed or delayed to avoid Hurricane Lee’s projected path toward New England, the company said on Friday.

The Pearl, Escape, and Skyships have new itineraries for “the safety and security of our guests, crew, and communities we visit,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Norwegian Pearl will depart from Boston on Saturday, instead of Friday evening, a spokesperson said. The passengers on the seven-day Canada and New England voyage will spend Sunday at sea, then dock in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Monday and Sydney, Nova Scotia, on Tuesday.

The ship canceled its call to Charlottetown, Prince Edward, the statement said.

The Norwegian Escape, which departed New York on Sunday for a seven-day Canada and New England trip, will anchor overnight in New York on Friday and Saturday, the statement said. The ship’s initial destination was Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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The Norwegian Sky, a 10-day Canada and New England voyage, will spend three days at sea Friday through Sunday, a spokesperson said.

The ship left Quebec City on Monday and will not dock as planned in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Portland, M.E.

No further routes were impacted as of Friday evening.

“We will continue to monitor the storm and communicate any additional updates as appropriate,” the statement said.

Maeve Lawler can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her @maeve_lawler .

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Forecasters cancel warnings as Lee begins to dissipate over Maritime Canada

The Associated Press

A motorist travels through floodwaters on a road that remains closed a day after Atlantic storm Lee passed through the region, on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, near Northeast Harbor, Maine. Robert F. Bukaty/AP hide caption

A motorist travels through floodwaters on a road that remains closed a day after Atlantic storm Lee passed through the region, on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, near Northeast Harbor, Maine.

BAR HARBOR, Maine — Atlantic storm Lee — which made landfall at near-hurricane strength, bringing destructive winds and torrential rains to New England and Maritime Canada — kept weakening Sunday after officials withdrew warnings and predicted the storm would disappear early this week.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday morning that the post-tropical cyclone was about 135 miles west of Channel-Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. The top sustained wind speed was 45 mph with some higher gusts expected.

"Gradual weakening is forecast during the next couple of days, and Lee could dissipate on Tuesday," the U.S. hurricane center said.

Hurricane Lee is expected to speed up its forward motion and dissipate in the next couple of days, forecasters said Sunday. National Hurricane Center hide caption

The sky was sunny in Maine on Sunday morning. Gov. Janet Mills suspended a state of emergency. Less than 5% of electricity customers were still without power, down from 11% by midday Saturday during the height of the storm. In Canada, 14% of Nova Scotia had no electricity, down from 27% on Saturday, with smaller numbers in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The center discontinued a tropical storm warning for the coast of Maine late Saturday. It reported late Sunday morning that all tropical storm warnings for Canada were discontinued.

Storm surges were expected to subside on Sunday after being forecast as up to 3 feet on Saturday along coastal areas, the hurricane center said.

As Hurricane Lee churns off the eastern U.S., another danger lurks: rip currents

Fatality reported in maine.

A 51-year-old motorist in Searsport, Maine, died Saturday after a large tree limb fell on his vehicle on U.S. Highway 1 during high winds. The limb brought down live power lines and utility workers had to cut power before removing the man, who died later at a hospital, Police Chief Brian Lunt said.

A driver suffered minor injuries Saturday, after a tree downed by Lee went through his windshield on Route 11 in Moro Plantation, Maine, according to Maine State Police. John Yoder, 23, of Apple Creek, Ohio, attempted to stop but couldn't avoid the tree. Yoder suffered minor cuts but the other five passengers in the van were not injured. Police blamed high winds for the downed tree.

The storm was tracked as moving around 22 mph and expected to proceed northeast, taking the weather system across the Canadian Maritimes. Rainfall was expected to be an additional 1 inch or less for portions of eastern Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the U.S. storm center said.

In Bar Harbor, Maine, the touristy gateway to Acadia National Park, a whale watch vessel broke free of its mooring and crashed ashore Saturday. Authorities worked to offload 1,800 gallons of diesel fuel to prevent it from spilling into the ocean.

What's the connection between climate change and hurricanes?

Lee flooded coastal roads in Nova Scotia and took ferries out of service while fanning anxiety in a region still reeling from wildfires and severe flooding this summer. The province's largest airport, Halifax Stanfield International, canceled all flights.

"People are exhausted," said Pam Lovelace, a councilor in Halifax. "It's so much in such a small time period."

Hurricane-force winds extended as far as 140 miles from Lee's center, with tropical storm-force winds extending as far as 320 miles, enough to cover all of Maine and much of Maritime Canada.

The storm skirted some of the most waterlogged areas of Massachusetts that experienced severe flash flooding days earlier, when fast water washed out roads, caused sinkholes, damaged homes and flooded vehicles.

In eastern Maine, winds died down enough by late afternoon Saturday for utility workers to begin using bucket trucks to make repairs.

Climate change exacerbates deadly floods worldwide

The entire region has experienced an especially wet summer, ranking second in the number of rainy days in Portland, Maine — and Lee's high winds toppled trees stressed by the rain-soaked ground in Maine, the nation's most heavily wooded state.

Cruise ships found refuge at berths in Portland, Maine, while lobstermen in Bar Harbor and elsewhere pulled traps from the water and hauled boats inland.

Billy Bob Faulkingham, House Republican leader of the Maine Legislature, and another lobsterman survived after their boat overturned while hauling traps ahead of the storm Friday, officials said.

The boat's emergency locator beacon alerted authorities and the pair clung to the hull until help arrived, said Winter Harbor Police Chief Danny Mitchell. The 42-foot boat sank.

"They're very lucky to be alive," Mitchell said.

Lee shared some characteristics with 2012's Superstorm Sandy. Both storms were once-strong hurricanes that became post-tropical cyclones — cyclonic storms that have lost most of their tropical characteristics — before landfall. But Sandy caused billions of dollars in damage and was blamed for dozens of deaths in New York and New Jersey.

Lee also was not anywhere near as severe as the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which a year ago washed houses into the ocean in eastern Canada, knocked out power to most of two provinces and swept a woman into the sea.

Destructive hurricanes are relatively rare so far north. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 brought gusts as high as 186 mph and sustained winds of 121 mph at Massachusetts' Blue Hill Observatory. There have been no storms that powerful in recent years.

Separately, Tropical Storm Nigel was strengthening and expected to become a hurricane by Monday, the U.S. hurricane center said. It appeared to pose no threats to the U.S. or Canada. It was about 990 miles northeast of the Lesser Antilles and about 1,115 miles east-southeast of Bermuda. It had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph and was moving north-northwest at 13 mph.

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Norwegian, Carnival and more cruise lines change itineraries due to Hurricane Beryl

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As Hurricane Beryl moves across the Caribbean, a number of cruise lines have changed itineraries in the area in an effort to avoid the storm.

▶ Norwegian Cruise Line altered nearly the entire itinerary for a week-long sailing on its Norwegian Breakaway ship that departed from Miami, Florida, on Sunday. The line canceled stops in Honduras, Harvest Caye in Belize, and Costa Maya and Cozumel in Mexico, according to a letter sent to guests that the line shared with USA TODAY. The ship will instead visit Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, Tortola, and Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas instead.

“While we share your disappointment, these modifications were made with great consideration as your safety, and that of our crew, is always our number one priority,” the letter said.

The line similarly changed a week-long sailing aboard Norwegian Jade that left Port Canaveral on Saturday, replacing planned calls in Falmouth, Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel with San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tortola and Puerto Plata.

Was your cruise itinerary changed? Here's what to do next

▶ Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Liberty ship moved a planned Friday stop in Cozumel up to Tuesday. The vessel departed on a week-long cruise from New Orleans, Louisiana, on Sunday, according to CruiseMapper .

Carnival Horizon, which is sailing a six-day itinerary that left Miami on Sunday, will skip a visit to Grand Cayman on Wednesday.

“The safety of our guests and crew is paramount, and we are continuing to monitor forecasts and factor in guidance from the National Hurricane Center, U.S. Coast Guard, and the local port authorities to provide timely updates to our guests as more information becomes available,” spokesperson Matt Lupoli said in an emailed statement.

▶ Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Fantasy ship – which set sail on a week-long cruise from Port Canaveral on Saturday – will not visit Falmouth as planned on Wednesday. The stop will be replaced with a sea day .

The center of the storm is expected to “move quickly across the southeastern and central Caribbean Sea today,” passing near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands the following day, the National Hurricane Center said.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].

What to expect on a cruise ship during a hurricane

I t's hurricane season in Florida and the Caribbean, and the damage has started earlier than usual. Hurricane Beryl has become the earliest category 3 or higher storm to ever hit, and it's a sort of appetizer for a period that many expect will contain more named storms than any year since storms have been named.

Booking a cruise during hurricane season (June 1-Nov. 30) comes with some risks. Your cruise ports could get changed and it's even possible your entire itinerary could change.

Related: MSC Cruises has 1 edge over Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises

It's worth noting that if you're booking a cruise because of a specific destination, there's always some risk to that. All cruise lines reserve the right to change itineraries and they can do so for weather, or other reasons (like the political unrest that's an issue in Haiti now preventing Royal Caribbean ships from stopping in Labadee.

Every cruise line, however, puts the safety of its passengers and ship ahead of everything else. There are times, for example, when rough seas make it impossible to dock safely in certain ports.

When that happens the cruise line may find an alternate, or it may end up adding a sea day. Passengers will receive a refund for any port fees or taxes they paid for that stop and any cruise-line-booked excursions will be refunded as well.

Sometimes cruise lines offer onboard credit as an apology for certain mixed ports, but that's not the usual practice and it's not required.

Sign up for the Come Cruise With Me newsletter to save money on your next (or your first) cruise.

What is it like being on a cruise in bad weather?

The experience varies greatly based on the size of the ship you are sailing on. When I was sailing during very rough seas on Celebrity Summit a few years go, the pool decks were closed one night because water from waves was hitting the deck, and the pools were sloshing water onto the deck.

That's a smaller ship by modern standards (about 2,158 passengers) and you could feel the ship moving, items fells off your desk or other counters, and many people experienced motion sickness. 

It only lasted a few hours, and much of the ship remained open, but the main production show was altered to protect the performers, and many passengers opted to stay in their rooms. 

Summit's captain provided regular updates and made it clear that he was sailing us to the safest spots possible, but the weather was widespread in the Caribbean, so there was no calm spot to sail to. We actually made all of our ports, and aside from some people putting the airsick bags, which were discreetly put out in all the bathrooms and on some railings, to use, it was a relatiely mild interruption.

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Last year, on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, one of the largest cruise ships in the world with a double occupancy capacity of 5,602 passengers, I sailed out of Bayonne, New Jersey while a hurricane worked its way around the east coast and the Caribbean, and seas were visibly rough.

You could also see water moving back and forth in the pools, and there spots on the ship where you felt movement. Airsick bags were also put out, but on a ship that large, the rough seas were more visual than impactful. A few passengers noticed, but nothing really changed about our sailing.    

Expect missed ports and rain

Some cruise ports are harder to dock in then other during rough weather. No cruise line wants to change itineraries, but ships will stay clear of the worst weather. That can mean losing a stop you really wanted to visit in favor of one you have no interest in (or a sea day).

In addition, you should expect a period of rain most days when sailing in the Carribbean. Usually, rains lasts less than an hour and it can go from intense to beautufl very quickly. That's also important to remember in port as it's never a bad idea to pack a poncho and/or an umbrella.

In rare cases, ships can get diverted quickly. A few times a year, for example, cruises leaving from New York/New Jersey headed to the Caribbean end up switching to a New England and Canada itinerary.

If you do not have travel insurance that covers a changed itinerary, you have no recourse and won't get a refund (aside from port fees and excursions). You can buy insurance from your cruise line or privately. You can also buy annual travel insurance if you cruise and travel often, but it's very important to know what your policy covers.

Related: Get the best cruise tips, deals, and news on the ships from our expert cruiser

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Cruise expert suggests getting trip insurance in case a storm affects the ship

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A cruise expert suggests getting trip insurance in case a storm affects your ship.

High winds and large waves from Hurricane Beryl caused multiple cruise ships to reroute to avoid its path.

RELATED: Hurricane Beryl roars by Jamaica after killing at least 7 people in the southeast Caribbean

The storm left parts of the Caribbean, including Jamaica, with devastating damage.

Beryl is now expected to make landfall in the middle Texas coast overnight.

RELATED: Beryl bears down on Texas, where it’s expected to hit Monday and regain hurricane strength

Regan Moore, who lives in Jacksonville, said she still feels nervous about taking a cruise to the Bahamas next week.

“I will say you do have a little bit of anxiety if a storm comes out of nowhere and just decided to hit your ship and I’ve never been on a cruise,” Moore said.

Cruise ships have access to weather-tracking navigation systems to avoid potential storms overseas.

Cruise lines like Royal Caribbean have their own meteorologists tracking storms ahead of time.

Travel expert and owner of the Cruise Genius Scott Lara advised getting travel insurance for good measure.

“Trip insurance gives you that piece of mind in case you lose a bag, in case you miss a flight,” Lara said. “I just recommend that you do buy travel insurance with the option to cancel for any reason.”

Lara suggests calling immediately if you’re worried about sudden cancellations or if a storm will affect your ship.

“Call the cruise line, call your travel agent, they’re the ones who can keep you up to speed on that,” Lara said.

Moore said that’s what she’s been doing to calm her nerves.

“Just mostly keeping track of the weather, checking with the cruise line and checking with Fox World Travel and asking ‘hey is everything still good?’” Moore said.

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Thinking About a Mississippi River Cruise? There’s One Big ‘If.’

Though operators are building ships, and towns are investing in landings and other infrastructure, fluctuations in the river’s flow, exacerbated by climate change, are hampering sailings.

By Rowan Moore Gerety

Rowan Moore Gerety spoke to civic leaders, cruise passengers and several cruise-industry businesses focused on the Mississippi River.

Tom Trovato and his wife, Trish, paid more than $20,000 and waited two years to experience Viking’s inaugural cruise up the Mississippi River. Leaving in September 2022, it was supposed be a two-week excursion from New Orleans to St. Paul, Minn., a trip of some 1,800 miles.

They never got past Memphis.

Low water levels, caused by drought, narrowed the river’s main shipping channel to allow only one-way traffic, first stalling their boat, the Viking Mississippi, and then ultimately aborting the trip.

Though they got a full refund, the Trovatos, who live in Surprise, Ariz., have no plans to try again.

“If I live to be 125, it might be on my bucket list,” said Mr. Trovato, 79.

The Mississippi River is central to American identity, with all the contradictions that entails. It’s an artery that sustained Indigenous cultures for thousands of years — “Mississippi” derives from the Ojibwe for “great river” — and it marked the frontier from which Lewis and Clark set out to find a route to the Pacific. The river’s alluvial deposits and deep waters formed the basis of prosperity for generations of farmers, and brought perdition to vast numbers of enslaved people who toiled along its banks and feared little more than being “sold down the river.”

For many people, particularly baby boomers reaching their retirement years, a cruise along the Mississippi River is a dream trip. But it’s becoming harder to make it come true. Though operators are building new ships, and towns and cities are investing in infrastructure to welcome boat traffic, cruises on the Mississippi face mounting challenges from an increasing number of droughts and floods.

Decades of forest and wetland destruction, dam construction and dredging have added to natural fluctuations in the Mississippi’s flow. Now climate change has only heightened the river’s tendency for dramatic seasonal shifts in water levels, frequently rerouting ships and causing delays.

Just late last month, in St. Paul — the final port for the Trovatos’ original itinerary — rising Mississippi River levels forced the closure of shoreline roads , bridges and parks . The river rose 20.17 feet above its banks before cresting, the seventh major flood in St. Paul since 2010, according to the National Water Prediction Service, and the eighth highest crest recorded.

Farther south, Memphis had made its $40 million Beale Street Landing the centerpiece of a larger redevelopment of parks and trails snaking along six miles of Mississippi shoreline. Last year, more than half of the 128 scheduled cruise ship landings there were canceled, mostly because of low water levels that made it impossible for the boats to reach the dock.

In July 2021, an overnight passenger riverboat visited Kimmswick, Mo., for the first time in 125 years, when the 341-foot American Duchess docked at its new landing. The town was expecting the cruise industry to boost tourism in the area. But the American Duchess was also the last cruise to dock there. There hasn’t been enough water for boats to come back until recently: The Viking Mississippi was finally scheduled to land in Kimmswick on Monday, but this time, the water was too high.

“We’re just seeing climate impacts stack up,” said Colin Wellenkamp, the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative , a coalition of local governments along the river. “We used to see them every 10 to 15 years, now we’re seeing them where they just don’t quit.”

‘Demand’s not going anywhere but up’

Despite the pandemic, when most travel worldwide was at a costly standstill, bookings on river cruises in the United States rose 25 percent from 2019 to 2022, according to data from AAA, the automobile owners’ group that also tracks air and cruise travel. An analysis by the market research firm Grandview Research in 2022 projected continued growth of more than 20 percent a year for U.S. river cruising through 2030, largely on the strength of the Mississippi River cruises.

River cruising “took off first in the European rivers, but it’s always been really built on American travelers,” said Charlie Robertson, an owner and chief executive of American Cruise Lines , the dominant operator on the Mississippi. Both American and Viking , a major player in Europe and Asia, are already booking Mississippi cruises into 2025, and building new ships to serve this market. Though the parent company of the third Mississippi cruise operator, American Queen Voyages, declared bankruptcy earlier this year, citing difficulties recovering from the effects of the pandemic, American Cruise Lines purchased all four paddle wheelers in its fleet.

“Demand’s not going anywhere but up,” Mr. Wellenkamp said. “Everybody wants to see the historic Main Street, and everybody wants to see this ecological icon Mark Twain wrote about.”

In Kimmswick, the new landing had local leaders dreaming of a return to the town’s roots as a key stop for Mississippi steamboats. After years spent building sandbag levees to protect Kimmswick — three major floods threatened the downtown since 2015 — and building a landing to accommodate 40-foot swings in the river’s flow, drought severe enough to threaten the town’s economic prospects seemed unthinkable.

“​​How can you be a river-facing city if you don’t have any riverboats?” said Phil Stang, Kimmswick’s mayor.

Powerfully unpredictable

The Mississippi basin extends to 32 states and two Canadian provinces, moving a staggering 600,000 cubic feet of water a second into the Gulf of Mexico. Even in its historic state, it could be powerfully unpredictable, with flows that oscillated by as much as 60 feet in the space of a season. T.S. Eliot called the river “a strong brown god — sullen, untamed and intractable.”

Today, much of the river has been remade as a maritime highway, with locks, levees and revetments designed to control its flow and stop floodwaters.

“When the river wasn’t leveed, it would flood 100 miles back into farmland,” said Lee Hendrix, who got his start as a deckhand on a towboat in 1972 and has spent the last 50 years working on the river . “Now, the levees don’t allow that.” As a result, the river’s swings are growing more intense. “It’s undeniable that it’s more volatile in terms of how rapidly it can rise and fall,” Mr. Hendrix said.

He spent last summer sharing Mississippi lore and trivia with passengers as the American Queen’s onboard “Riverlorian.” As the boat sailed past sandbars that went on for miles, he found himself grateful to be in a position with no responsibility for logistics. “There were a lot of docks we couldn’t get to,” he said.

Planning can blunt the impact of these disruptions — American Cruise Lines doesn’t schedule its tallest boats to sail the upper Mississippi, where sailing under some bridges during high water is impossible. The boats themselves are changing, too, to designs that can slip beneath low bridges, motor upstream against strong currents and get to shore in shallower waters. “Our basic design parameter is that if the tow boats can go, we can go,” said Mr. Robertson, the chief executive. “Because the Army Corps will move heaven and earth to allow the towing industry to keep moving.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers runs patrol teams and a dredging operation to maintain a navigable channel at least 300 feet wide and 9 feet deep. In recent years, the Corps has added more structures along the riverbanks called “chevrons” that allow high water to better flush out sediment that blocks the channel. Nevertheless, drought conditions have extended seasons when dredging is required.

“While we’re dredging less, our crews are out there on the river for a longer time,” said Shawn Sullivan, the strategic planning coordinator for the Corps’ St. Louis district. “I don’t know what normal is anymore.”

Carefully timed trips

Carol Coletta leads Memphis River Parks Partnership , the nonprofit that manages Beale Street Landing. The group anticipates a $700,000 revenue shortfall from landings this fiscal year, and is looking for ways to modify a second landing that can welcome boats even when the river is at its lowest. “We have to anticipate that this could persist,” Ms. Coletta said, “and if it does persist, then we cannot count on boat dockings for revenue.”

For cities smaller than Memphis, the hit can be much deeper. “If you’re a town of 800 people and a boat of 250 shows up, you’re going to feel that in your economy,” said Mr. Wellenkamp, of the Cities and Towns Initiative. “We have cities that 20 percent of their economy is captured from the riverboats stopping in, and we have cities where 60 percent of the economy is captured from riverboats stopping in.”

Cindy Anderson, who owns the travel agency USA River Cruises, says she’s gotten more careful in advising customers when to visit the region. “We have people ask us, and I say, ‘Springtime is fabulous,’” she said. Vendors have shifted their offering, too. The whole Mississippi, from St. Paul to New Orleans, was a popular itinerary Ms. Anderson used to sell year round; now it’s only available for a few months in the summer.

“That’s a very long and expensive cruise to book if you have to cancel it,” she said.

Even as cruise traffic on the Mississippi has grown, Ms. Anderson says much of her business has shifted to the Columbia River, in the Pacific Northwest, where large dams and meltwater from high peaks modulate seasonal changes in flow.

“We don’t have any water issues on the Columbia River — it never closes down, it never floods,” she said.

Ms. Anderson compared the unpredictability of Mississippi River itineraries to European rivers, many of them crisscrossed by historic bridges that offer little clearance for cruises to pass when waters are high. There, operators often ferry passengers between segments of a trip on chartered buses. But, Ms. Anderson said, most guests will expect refunds for an itinerary full of transfers by what cruise operators often call “motor coach.”

“Because they didn’t really get a cruise, they got a bus trip,” she said.

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