Frank Morris

Urea prices have shot up by almost a third since the Strait closed.

Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer at Stonex, says it's his nightmare scenario.

The Fertilizer Institute predicts American farmers will be short perhaps two million tons of urea this spring and grow less food because of it.

For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.

For much of the world, normal is gone.

Farmers plant major crops like corn and soybeans in the spring, but first they put down lots of nitrogen fertilizer, chiefly urea.

Urea is made with natural gas, and almost half the world's exports of it typically ship through the Strait of Hormuz.

Urea prices have shot up by almost a third since the Strait closed.

Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer at Stonex, says it's his nightmare scenario.

The Fertilizer Institute predicts American farmers will be short perhaps two million tons of urea this spring and grow less food because of it.

For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.

Thick ice breaking trees and power lines cut electricity to four out of five homes and businesses in several North Mississippi counties.

Matt Hackworth, a Presbyterian minister in Oxford, Mississippi, is huddling with his wife, son and parents in a chilly, dark house.

While the storm should be letting up, restoring power to the hardest-hit parts of the South is likely to take weeks.

Frank Morris, NPR News, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

As it got underway, the storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Texas and Arkansas.

Ice could cause widespread outages from Texas to the Carolinas and into Virginia.

Leon Craigle in Tulsa, Oklahoma, manages street maintenance for the city and says clearing deep snow may be a losing battle this weekend.

The storm's scrambling air traffic, too, with thousands of flights canceled, primarily in the southeast and east coast.

Frank Morris, NPR News, Tulsa, Oklahoma.