Hurricane Harvey Closes Texas Ports

Days after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on the U.S. Gulf Coast, Texas ports are still working on getting reopened. Task force officials, headed by the Coast Guard, are in the beginning stages of assessing the conditions of the ports to determine what needs to be done before vessels can begin returning to the ports.  As of Wednesday, the ports of Houston, Texas City, Galveston, Corpus Christi and Freeport were reopened for some vessel traffic including tugs and barges, but not without restrictions, and traffic is only allowed during daylight hours. Deep-draft ships are still prohibited in all ports.

The Port of Houston, which oversees two thirds of U.S. Gulf container traffic, including 40-50 vessels going in and out every single day, is hoping to be up and running fully by September 4th. One of the biggest concerns causing the delays is the tremendous amount of water which is being dumped into the channel.  It is estimated that 20 trillion gallons of water has been brought on by Hurricane Harvey. 

Port officials said they are taking it one day at time in hopes that the reopening of container terminals and warehouses can be fully functioning sooner rather than later, to avoid further interruption to shipments and port operations.  Steamship lines that were able to avoid the Houston ports before the storm hit, have begun rerouting vessels to other ports, but with the majority of the Texas ports still shutdown and/or not running to full capacity and no set date for resuming of regular schedules, customers have been warned that cargo shipments could see substantial delays.

The Journal of Commerce continues to update a helpful resource list that includes updates from logistics companies and transportation companies.

As always, if you any questions/concerns regarding your shipments in that area please, email us!