the commercial sea lanes , that 's a concern because if ships do n't come in and ships are n't able to go out , that stops commerce , '' said Donald Allee , the CEO of Mississippi State Port Authority . Equipment operator Daniel Schepens knows all too well what that will mean . After Katrina , he was out of work for a month . He is worried the fallout from the spill could be worse . `` No ships , the warehouses are empty , no trucks , no imports , no exports , '' he said . Federal officials closed a portion of the northern Gulf of Mexico to fishing Sunday , curtailing a billion-dollar business as high winds and choppy seas hampered efforts to corral a rapidly growing oil spill . The spill cast a pall over the annual Blessing of the Fleet in Bayou La Batre , Alabama , one of many towns that make their living from the Gulf . Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana attended a boat blessing in St. Bernard , Louisiana , where fishermen have observed the tradition for decades to usher in the shrimp season . `` Louisianians
Gulfport , Mississippi -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Ben Stone knows quite a bit about disasters . Five years ago , a 28-foot storm surge from Hurricane Katrina flattened his house and almost wiped out his hometown of Gulfport , Mississippi . Now , if a rapidly growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico comes ashore -- as some expect -- Stone will be able to see it from the front porch of his newly-built house . `` You can get mad about this , '' he said . `` I 'm very disturbed about it . '' Like residents along the coast of Alabama and Florida Panhandle , it is a waiting game for Gulfport . Already a heavy smell of oil hung over the Mississippi beaches . `` This could not have happened at a worse time in our history , '' said John Kelly , the town 's chief administrative officer . The city has undertaken half a billion dollars in new construction since Katrina . Of that , $ 30 million is being spent on developing the harbor -- the third largest container port on the Gulf Coast . `` Well , it if it threatens