The man in charge of getting the Baltimore Port back in business

livemint.com:

BALTIMORE—Jonathan Daniels took over this city’s port two months ago with a mandate to expand it. As he looks outside a 20th-floor window, it is clear how much his job has changed. In the distance is the mangled wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the 984-foot containership that brought down the span in late March.

He is now managing a crisis he never imagined that threatens a major driver of the area’s economy. In short, he has the hardest job in U.S. logistics right now.

“You look out there, it’s gone," he said of the bridge, part of the city’s beltway for nearly 50 years. “Not only is that route gone, but also it’s blocking commerce for the region." The wreckage has walled off most of the port to oceangoing ships, including all but one of the vehicle terminals that made Baltimore the nation’s top gateway for imported cars. The Army Corps of Engineers says it aims to remove enough debris to fully reopen the 50-foot-deep channel by late May.

“We want our cargo back when that time comes," Daniels, who is 55, balding and deep-voiced, said in his first public comments since the ship Dali lost steering for unknown reasons and slammed into a bridge support column around 1:30 a.m. March 26. The collapse of the bridge killed six workers who were repairing potholes.

Daniels said he is already planning for the resumption of operations. He is acting as a liaison between federal and state officials and an array of port interests. That means staying in touch with shippers, private port operators and the longshoremen’s union, as well as with the Army Corps and Coast Guard, which are leading the federal disaster response.