When Bethan Rooney first set her sights on running the Port of New York and New Jersey nearly a decade ago, the main U.S. East Coast gateway for maritime imports was struggling to handle about 5.4 million containers a year .
Now, onetime deck cadets on cargo-carrying ships have taken over operations at a port that has nearly twice as many boxes running through its tightly packed docks, a sign of the bottlenecks in the distribution channels that are affecting American supply chains and Hamstrung is closed. American economy.
“The challenge dynamics are very different from their [a decade ago]Said Ms. Rooney, who is struggling with more and more large ships entering the iconic New York Harbor, the containers on the ships piled so high that the authorities had to pick up a bridge to pass them.
Bethan Rooney, port director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is shown with Brenda Fallon, widow of William Fallon, a general manager of the Port Authority’s port department who died while helping employees escape the World Trade Center . 9/11 terrorist attacks.
photo:
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Ms Rooney, 52, is one of many Front Lines of Freight Operations— from truckers in Southern California to crane operators and logistics managers at retailers at coastal ports — are trying to navigate American supply chains through an era of unprecedented congestion and disruption.
The roadblocks have been most acute on the West Coast, where a backlog of ships waiting offshore extends to over 100 container ships earlier this year. backup is recent spread to the ports of the east coast As shippers and ocean carriers are seeking refuge from congestion.
Ms Rooney took over the port on 2 May. last week, a an average of 14 ships a day New York and New Jersey were waiting in the water outside shipping terminals, an unimaginable number for a port that hadn’t counted recent vessel backups because they weren’t there.
“It kills me,” Ms. Rooney said from her 17th-floor office at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, overlooking New York Harbor.
The volume of freight the port handles today that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey forecast will not arrive until 2026, projected just a few years ago. Last year, the port processed approximately 9 million containers, measured in 20-foot equivalent units, a 20% increase compared to 2019.
Ms Rooney trained as a third mate and is licensed to navigate ships. Her first job out of college was as a shipping agent for General Steamship Corp, where she looked after the company’s cargo and crew upon arrival at port.
She joined the Port Authority’s Port Department in 1993 and worked on the development of intermodal rail, cross-harbour barge systems and technology. In 2001, a day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the port put Ms. Rooney in charge of security.
She recalls that in the years following Superstorm Sandy, which hit the region in 2012, the port was struggling to handle container volumes. Floodwaters damaged a crew of trucking equipment, and trucks backed up for miles as they tried to lift and drop containers.
Over the same weekend, Ms Rooney detailed a plan to address the problem and the port quickly adopted it and placed her in charge of the port’s performance and efficiency.
His idea at the time was to create a working group of ocean carriers, truck drivers, railroads and retailers who meet regularly to share and anticipate shipping needs. That structure, she said, is one reason why the port did not face the same congestion as other ports during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when extreme changes in demand overwhelmed many gateways.
“She really gets it,” said Tom Heimgartner, president of the Association of By-State Motor Carriers, which represents truckers using the port. “I’ve been in the port business for over 40 years and she’s the first port director to really work my way up the ranks.”
Ms Rooney said the port has been able to handle record cargo volumes largely due to the investment. Over the past decade, it has added new cargo-handling equipment and spent billions of dollars to deepen the port and increase the roadway of the Bayonne Bridge, opening the main channel for larger ships to the port’s many container terminals. Is.
But now the port is almost full. Its cargo-handling facilities are so full of containers, with about 120,000 empty boxes waiting to be returned to overseas sites, that it is disrupting operations.
Ms. Rooney has got 10 acres to store overflow containers and is pressuring ocean carriers to ship empty vessels. It said cargo operators have extended operating hours and last Saturday they handled twice as many containers as usual.
The deluge is only expected to worsen this summer as the container sector’s peak shipping season begins and the port prepares for an increase in cargo volumes. Industry experts also expect more companies to divert cargo from the West Coast, where importers fear labor negotiations with dockworkers There may be a slowdown in work.
Ms Rooney said the port is preparing for new investments for long-term expansion. But truck drivers, warehouse and other operators in the supply chain will need to work longer hours and handle more goods to pay for such investments. More than that, however, those operators and their customers will need to keep talking, helping the port to overtake the odds, as they did in earlier times of stress.
“The whole pipeline needs to work together” to keep shipments running, Ms Rooney said.
Millions of sailors, truck drivers, longshoremen, warehouse workers and delivery drivers move mountains of goods to stores and homes every day to meet the ever-increasing expectations of consumer convenience. But this complex movement of goods that supports the global economy is far more vulnerable than many imagine. Photo Illustration: Adele Morgan
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