The strong smell of oil in the air ruined the beautiful sunrise on the Mississippi.

Visitors taking their morning jog say they had no idea what happened on the river in the middle of the night. But, they say the sight of oil floating in the water is obvious and disturbing.

“It's upsetting,” said Lois Azzarello of Baton Rouge. “It doesn't belong here. I'd love to know how two ships collided right there.”

“We were thinking about walking inland because of the smell,” said Peter McPherson, a Canadian visitor. “I thought stupidly, maybe they silted this area. You just don't think that there will be a barge crash.”

James Joseph, a security guard on the Natchez steamboat, says he was in the pilot house of the steamboat when he suddenly noticed a strong odor around 2:30 a.m.

“I noticed it was like an oily smell. I could see oil all around the side of the boat. I first thought it could be a problem with the engines here on the Natchez. Then I said wait a minute, it can't be the engines, we're on shore power,” Joseph said.

More than 6000 state leaders from across the country are in New Orleans for the annual legislative summit. Two lawmakers from Arkansas say the spill is a sad distraction on their first morning in the city.

“We came this way so that we would have the serenity of walking on the river, and you know the calmness of the water.” Said Arkansas state Sen. Joyce Elliot. “We kept smelling something, and that was definitely interfering this notion that we had that we were going to have this nice thoughtful walk.”

David Rainey, Arkansas state representative, agreed.

“It's important that someone clean it up, but it also important that steps are taken to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.”