OT: Sault Ste. Marie is the linchpin of the US economy, who knew?

So apparently the single most important asset in the US economy is the 48 year old Poe Lock in Sault Ste. Marie.  If it has to shut down for any significant amount of time, the entire economy, especially in the midwest, is basically fucked.

I'm not usually a fear-monger, but I had no idea that lock was so damn important, and I've lived in Michigan my entire life.

It's a freep article so I'll just copy the most important bits.

 A U.S. Department of Homeland Security report indicates a 6-month shutdown of the Poe Lock in Sault Ste. Marie, if one occurred, would plunge the nation into recession, closing factories and mines, halting auto and appliance production in the U.S. for most of a year and result in the loss of some 11 million jobs across the nation.

Even the Army Corps, which operates and maintains the Soo Locks, has acknowledged that the 48-year-old Poe is in need of major upgrades, which have been limited by funding constraints. The Corps is “slowly overhauling components” of the lock each year, but, as Corps spokeswoman Lynn Rose told the Free Press some months ago, “As the lock ages, the probabilities of failure increase.”

Previous studies done by the Corps have concluded that a 30-day closure of the Poe could have an economic impact of $160 million. But the Homeland Security report — which had been previously available to some industry insiders in draft form, but kept secret from the public — went much further, outlining economic and employment impacts across the country, and even into Canada and Mexico, calling the Poe, “the Achilles’ heel of the North American industrial economy.”

Such a long-term event, the report said, would send an economic tidal wave crashing across U.S. manufacturing. Iron ore mining would virtually stop and production of steel-related items — from cars and construction and equipment, to railcars and appliances — would halt, with millions losing work until the problem was resolved and work recommenced, which would likely that months more.

“In terms of an impact to the North American economy,” the authors wrote, “it is hard to conceive of a single asset more consequential than the Poe Lock.”

http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/03/us-michigan-face-dire-consequences-if-soo-locks-fail/81261608/

EDIT:  Added content...

More ominously, for even any short-term closure, it concluded that any plans to react — by using trucks or rail, for instance, to move iron ore — would almost certainly fail.

In past studies, there have been suggestions that the iron ore might be moved by truck or by rail, but the Homeland Security report makes clear that each of the thousand-footers carries the equivalent of seven trains with 100 rail cars each or about 3,000 trucks — a volume that would be impossible to ship overland, even if steel mills were equipped to take the iron ore by road or by rail, which they are not.