Baltimore ship accident has East Coast ports scrambling to absorb cargo
economictimes.indiatimes.com
The Port of Virginia, with terminals at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, is opening a gate Monday at 5 a.m. — an hour earlier than usual — to help accommodate more truckers. The Port of New York and New Jersey, which is expecting additional cargo including autos, is working to allow quick access for transport companies that usually go through Baltimore. A major railroad is expanding its services, too.
Fallout from last week’s deadly bridge collapse, which indefinitely closed the nation’s 17th-largest port by total cargo tonnage and the busiest gateway for vehicles, is expected to be largely contained as neighboring facilities with spare capacity tweak their schedules. Snarls, delays and added costs are more likely to appear outside ports as tens of thousands of shipments require longer routes on already-crowded roadways and rail lines.
“The ports on the East Coast can easily absorb the immediate aftermath on containerized trade,” said Sanne Manders, president of international operations at Flexport Inc., a digital freight platform. “The longer-term aftermath will probably be more severe, because even if you take away the debris from the port, that is an extremely important bridge as a feeder into the port, and traffic will have to reroute a long, long way.”
CSX Corp., the Jacksonville, Florida-based railroad, said it’s starting to offer a rail service designed to move diverted Baltimore freight from New York.
Norfolk, New York and Charleston, South Carolina, are most often the next destinations
