The collapse yesterday of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, after it was hit by a container ship, will disrupt shipping, rail, trucking, the Port of Baltimore and the Mid-Atlantic region served by the I-95 highway corridor, according to one shipping executive.
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The executive said: “At this point, nobody knows how long the Port of Baltimore will be closed. It could be weeks, it could be longer. There are still containers in the water, and they have to be retrieved. There is still the damage assessment to the ship to be taken into account. There is also the environmental impact. Right now, we are scrambling to redirect our ships either to Norfolk or to New York/New Jersey and our concern is whether there is sufficient capacity to take the redeployments ...”
The shipping executive went on to say: “In terms of the traffic, the loss of this bridge is huge: There's a lot of vehicles that cross that bridge a day. There is also the impact on trucking and especially on hazmat cargoes that were transiting the bridge that may not use the tunnels. Rail, in and out of Baltimore, will be impacted, both the CSX and the Norfolk Southern.”
Our team at 1UP Cargo are working hard on contingency plans to have the least impact to your shipments to and from the region
Read more in an article from the American Journal of Transportation.
Written by: AJOT; CIFFA