On March 26 just before 1:30 in the morning, the cargo ship Dali rammed the Francis Scott Key Bridge outside Baltimore, dropping the massive 8,636-foot-long bridge into the harbor. The dramatic collapse and the response have led to wild speculation, dramatic conspiracy theories, and a swiftly assembled effort to restore shipping through the port. It’s also prompted some fairly dramatic punditry in some of the more histrionic media on how this accident and tragedy will crater the U.S economy and is the result of “woke” mindset. (We won’t include links because we decline to give idiocy more clicks, but you can find it all should you want to.)
As awful as this is, as expensive as it will be to repair, and as tragic as the loss of life is, the supply chain impact is not as likely to be as dreadful as some of the yakking Cassandras would have you believe.
For one, just over a week later, a temporary shipping channel has been opened, which, while it can’t handle the usual traffic will allow the port to open again. Moreover, it’s not the only option.
The port is ranked as the 17th busiest port in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, well behind New York and Virginia on the east coast. While not ideal, some traffic can be diverted there, and the ports are in a better position to accommodate the increased loads than they were just two years ago as the global pandemic disrupted the supply chain. We won’t, for example, see the backup of ships waiting days or more to get to dock.
As we’ve written previously, there is concern about shipping traffic on the Red Sea with terrorists attacking ships, which has forced shipping companies to reroute, spiked insurance premiums, and delayed shipments overall.
Given the size of our industry, it doesn’t get much coverage in the mainstream media when people consider the impact on trade of supply chain disruptions. It seems, though, that at least at this writing the effect on toys will be limited. Most of the coverage has talked about automotive and tech coming into the Port of Baltimore and how the slowdown may impact inventory levels and costs.
For toys, costs and timings of the new supply chain realities were considered in planning for this year, and by the time the bulk of Q4 inventory is on the water, much may have been resolved—or at least eased.
That said, however, it’s just another variable (Isn’t that a nice word for something so potentially stress-inducing?) in the entire mix of getting goods to market.
Have you been affected? And what are your concerns for shipping in 2024?
