September 17, 2018 - Two North Carolina ports are damaged enough to delay reopening in the wake of Hurricane Florence, according to an advisory from the North Carolina Ports Authority (NCPA), issued Sunday afternoon.
The Port of Wilmington and the Port of Morehead City will remain closed through Wednesday, September 19. "Initial assessments indicate there is damage at both locations to warehouse and other structures, as well as a significant number of downed empty containers to be cleared. A detailed assessment of all cranes, which appear undamaged, will be conducted," reads the email update.
All but one of South Carolina's ports, including Charleston, opened Monday, resuming normal rail operations. Ports in Virginia and Georgia also resumed operations as planned before the storm made landfall on Friday morning.
Florence was downgraded to a tropical depression as of Monday morning, but the storm is far from over and it is North Carolina that appears to have sustained the most damage from assessments made so far: 17 of the 23 recorded deaths so far are from that state.
But with the rain still falling over North Carolina, South Carolina and four surrounding states, that may change. About 575,000 homes and businesses remain without power, mostly in North Carolina, reports the Weather Channel.
The flooding caused a CSX train to derail when the tracks washed out in Lilesville, North Carolina, but the company has issued no general service advisories since Saturday, when it said in an update on its website, "network assessment and recovery efforts for impacted areas are currently underway."
An analysis by the FEWSION project of Northern Arizona University found that the disruption from Florence will likely be largely limited to mid-Atlantic supply chains with Africa the most affected export market.
Source: Supply Chain Dive
