Baltimore’s Port Shutdown: Impact of Global Shipping Crisis

TFD – Dive into the aftermath of the Dali bridge collision, which has led to a shutdown of Baltimore’s port and highlighted the challenges faced by the global shipping industry. Discov

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the global supply chain and US coastal infrastructure collided in the worst possible way. An enormous container ship, the Dali, slammed into a support of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, crumpling its central span into the Patapsco River and cutting off the city’s port from the Atlantic Ocean. Eighteen hours later, at approximately 7:30 pm Tuesday evening, rescuers called off a search, with six missing people presumed dead.

According to the Maryland Port Administration, trucks are still carrying products in and out of the area, but all water movement has been delayed at the Port of Baltimore, a vital shipping hub, because the wreckage has not yet been cleaned. Since Baltimore is the ninth biggest port in the US for foreign trade, the crash’s impacts will be felt throughout the local, national, and even international economies for however long it takes to repair the 47-year-old bridge—a timescale that experts say is still unknown.

The auto, agricultural equipment, and construction sectors will be most hurt by this, as Baltimore handles the majority of “roll on, roll off” ships (a term used in the industry to describe ships built to transport wheeled goods) on the US East Coast. The port is ideally situated to transport these goods since it is close to the heavily agricultural Midwest and densely populated Eastern Seaboard, and it employs individuals who are trained to operate the specialized equipment.

Last year, some 850,000 automobiles and light trucks passed through the port. 1.3 million tons of agricultural and construction equipment also done so.

Thankfully, there are other routes for trucks to cross the river and for ships to enter ports, which benefits the logistics sector. The Patapsco is crossed by two tunnels that could carry some of the cargo and passengers that used to cross the Key Bridge, which was also a portion of Maryland Route 695. Many of the items that Baltimore’s port typically handles should be able to be accepted by nearby ports, such as Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Savannah, Georgia.

However, the longer it takes to address the accident, the more convoluted the shipping picture will become. Even though ships move rather slowly across seas, they can transport massive, heavy loads in large quantities, therefore altering their routes and destinations can significantly lengthen a trip. When a ship is transporting a variety of goods for numerous industries, delays might result in a large number of people demanding their supply.

“At the moment, everyone is telling us that we just need to reroute, and everything will work out,” says Nada Sanders, a Northeastern University supply chain management specialist. It won’t be alright if this continues for a long time. Prices will be impacted by it.

The bridge’s demolition serves as another evidence of the growing size of boats. Over the last three decades, the volume of trade movement over international borders has tripled. The Dali, at almost a thousand feet in length, is a symbol of the rapidly expanding marine sector.

The reason for the rise in boat sales is basic economics: the more cargo you can fit on a ship, the more money you can save. “There’s been a significant increase in cargo,” says UC San Diego supply chain specialist Zal Phiroz. This has been greatly altered by both COVID and the years that followed. Both the cost of cargo and containers increased dramatically. Everything just went through the roof.”

But infrastructure is stationary by design, while the maritime business is expanding. Sure, engineering and technology advance, but building a bridge is a costly project with long-term construction. “This incident is a reminder that we need to look at transportation and infrastructure as a system,” says Nii Attoh-Okine, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland. When the Francis Scott Key bridge first opened, cargo ships were substantially smaller. This was almost fifty years ago. “When these bridges were built, they weren’t necessarily built to withstand the size and weight and force of a cargo ship like this one ramming into it,” says Phiroz. “It wasn’t foreseeable that a scenario like this would take place.”

The steel frame collapsed like paper when the Dali struck that support. “When you take a support away, there is very little in the way of robustness,” David Knight, a bridge expert and specialist adviser to the UK’s Institution of Civil Engineers, told WIRED on Tuesday. “It will drag down, as we saw, all three spans.”

Knight continued, saying that although engineers have recently built protections to supports to fend off ships, these enormous ships nevertheless wreak havoc on anything they come into contact with.

The same pandemic that catapulted the shipping industry to new heights could also help save Baltimore and the wider region from the worst effects of the port’s shutdown. According to Michigan State University supply chain management expert Jason Miller, the worldwide shipping sector learned to take contingency planning more seriously as a result of the supply chain problems that followed the outbreak. “This is a human tragedy, and this is a disruption,” he says of the bridge collapse. But “we are further down the disruption learning curve compared to where we were four years ago.”