Logistics companies scramble after bridge collapse closes Port of Baltimore until further notice

CNBC
March 26, 2024
Lori Ann LaRocco

Logistics companies up and down the East Coast were urgently relaying messages back and forth to clients Tuesday on the status of their imports and exports, after the Port of Baltimore was shut down in response to the collapse of the city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. A massive rescue effort was underway Tuesday morning.

“Our first priority is engaging clients to make plans for containers that were originally routed to Baltimore that will be discharged at other ports on the Eastern Seaboard,” explained Paul Brashier, vice president of drayage and intermodal for ITS Logistics.

“These diverted volumes will impact the ports of New York/New Jersey, Norfolk and the Southeast and we have to prepare trucking and transload capacity to get that freight to its intended network,” Brashier said.

The 10,000 container-capacity vessel Dali was on its way out of the Port of Baltimore in the early hours of Tuesday morning, heading to Colombo, Sri Lanka when it collided with a bridge pillar. At the time of the collision, the vessel had two pilots from the Port of Baltimore taking it out of port.

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