18 cargo ships wait to dock in the Savannah port
The backlog of ships and cargo in the Port of Savannah
remains high due to a shortage of truck drivers, equipment and warehouse
workers.
Lee Beckman, manager of governmental affairs for the Georgia
Ports Authority, painted a dim picture of the situation at the major U.S. port
in coastal Georgia for lawmakers on Tuesday.
About 83,000 shipping containers are stacked across the
facility waiting to be shipped off of Georgia’s coast or hauled inland by
truckers. That figure is 22,000 higher than the port’s preferred maximum,
Beckman said.
Two weeks ago, 27 cargo ships anchored in the water, waiting
for their turn to come ashore — a number that has slowly declined to now 18.
Georgia Ports Authority officials have been scrambling to
empty the packed shipyard with only minimal success as the backlog remains
high.
The early supply issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — where
toilet paper could not be found at local grocery stores for miles — has
transformed into an issue of demand: sales are so high there are not enough
workers to keep goods moving.
“We’ve seen a massive increase in cargo volumes,"
Beckman said. "But with that came a massive increase in dwell time on our
facilities. Boxes sat on our facilities longer than we had previously planned
for or experienced.”
Warehouse workers can’t unload boxes quick enough, he said,
and drivers can’t get loads out of the port fast enough — a problem that grows
exponentially, compounding the massive backlog.
The problem doesn’t stem from just one root cause, but many,
explained Tim Brown, managing director of the Supply Chain and Logistics
Institute at Georgia Tech.
“Georgia truly is a supply chain state,” he said.
“In terms of the disruptions, a lot of people ask me,
‘What's the cause?’ It's a little bit of everything,” Brown told lawmakers. “So
there's no one solution; there's no one problem.”
Brown expects Georgians should soon find no problem picking
up “simple goods” — grocery and home improvement items that consist of one
part.
But more complex items that rely on pieces from dozens of
different countries — such as car parts or the newest video game console —
could be affected for a while to come.
In a scrambled effort to get shipping containers out of
Savannah, the Georgia Ports Authority expanded the hours in which truck drivers
can pick up their loads. Now, gates are often open until 11 p.m., Beckman said.
But changes made by the ports can only go so far. A
nationwide truck driver shortage is propelling much of the problem.
Ed Crowell, the president and CEO of the Georgia Motor
Trucking Association, said that the shortage of truck drivers that haul freight
loads nationwide has hit about 80,000 — a number, he said, “that is only going
to grow.”
Midway Democrat State Rep. Al Williams asked pointedly: When
will this problem be resolved?
“You're running out of storage space, you’ve got 18 ships in
the harbor,” he said. “What was the light at the end of the tunnel? Because the
supply chain jam now is a nightmare.”
The passage of the Biden administration’s massive $1.2
trillion infrastructure bill last week may offer some relief.
While most of the infrastructure projects outlined in the
plan will take years to complete, the White House is working to speed up fund
distribution of $17 million for port projects in an effort to reduce nationwide
backlog.
One such project is multiple “pop-up” container yards to alleviate
congestion at the Port of Savannah.
According to the White House, the plan would allow the
Georgia Port Authority to redirect more than $8 million to convert existing
inland facilities into five container yards in both Georgia and North Carolina.
The Port of Savannah will transport containers via rail and
truck inland, closer to their final destination, for storage freeing up space
at the port.
The bill also includes more than $240 million in grant
funding made available within the next 45 days to modernize ports and marine
highways.
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