Northeast Truckers Restart Service After Storm’s Outages, Destruction

This story appears in the Nov. 12 print edition of Transport Topics.

Truckers in the Northeast said last week they have successfully managed to get most business moving, overcoming port delays, flooding and power outages left behind by Superstorm Sandy.

Carriers ranging from port truckers to furniture delivery and less-than-truckload fleets said they had resumed service despite losses such as 1,000 trucks destroyed by the hurricane that came ashore in New Jersey but left a path of damage hundreds of miles wide.

While deliveries resumed wherever possible, service was still knocked out in some places such as lower Manhattan, shore points and communities such as Fairfield, N.J., along the Passaic River. The Port of New York and New Jersey, largest on the East Coast, resumed container shipping, though carriers said service there was far from the normal 10,000 trucks a day that arrive and leave.

“We took a hit, but we got our trucks back up and running,” said Tom Heimgartner, owner of Best Transportation, Newark, N.J., who lost a few tractors that couldn’t be secured indoors.

“Our biggest issue is that the ocean terminals are not up to snuff,” he said, citing three-mile-long lines of drayage trucks waiting at port gates and fees being charged for daily storage and chassis use, even though the ports aren’t operating properly.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “We are being charged for things that aren’t our fault.”

Heimgartner, whose business includes interstate drayage beyond Sandy’s path, said, “Most of our customers were not affected or are back to normal. They are ready to go. They are waiting for us to bring their freight.”

First Coast Logistics agent Tom Adamski in Newark had a similar assessment.

“It’s very disheartening,” he told TT last week. “But you just pick up your boots and start dancing again. Everybody is functional and picking up the pieces.”

Business is between 60% and 75% of normal, much better than the immediate aftermath, when some trucks in the Kearny, N.J., area were flooded up to the dashboard, Adamski said.

“Parts of the state are still in trouble, particularly coastal areas,” said Gail Toth, director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association.

“Quite a few owner-operators lost their rigs,” she said. Some of the drivers haven’t worked for two weeks.”

She also stressed progress, saying, “It’s very impressive that the guys got the food stores filled. You can buy almost anything.”

Consumer deliveries were stifled, however.

“When we called to make [home] deliveries, at first we couldn’t do that because trees were down,roads were closed and the power was out,” said Patrick Cory, managing partner at Cory First Choice Home Delivery Service, Secaucus, N.J.

Cory said his furniture delivery volume is still down about 50% for his 500-truck fleet, although all four warehouses are open and filling up.

“We have furniture that isn’t getting delivered, and we can’t be sure that it ever will be,” said Cory, who also saw hopeful signs.

“We also are seeing people who are desperate for furniture and need it immediately,” he said, as people still in their homes replace damaged goods.

“We anticipate a surge in volume,” Cory said, as retailers replenish their stocks. “We anticipate customers flowing into those stores and buying a lot of product. We will have to fill a lot of orders.”

“Things are still all out of kilter,” said Charles Clowdis, a managing director at consultant IHS Global Insight.

Economic damage estimates top $100 billion, Clowdis told TT, gauging business at 60% of normal in storm-affected areas.

Some cargo was diverted to ports from Virginia to Nova Scotia before the port reopened. Storm-damaged railroads also resumed Northeast service.

“Through yesterday, things were coming back to normal, if normal means there are still some streets you can’t drive through,” said Clowdis, a former New Jersey trucker.

Bob Costello, chief economist at American Trucking Associations, estimated the storm could reduce gross domestic product by 0.4 percentage point, a substantial amount when overall growth likely will be under 2%.

“Rebuilding from the storm in the Northeast is going to be a drain in the fourth quarter,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a television interview. “A lot of rebuilding is going to take place. That alone will add a little uptick.”

“We were fortunate,” said Steve O’Kane, president of LTL carrier A. Duie Pyle, West Chester, Pa., whose 14-state coverage area was broadly affected by the storm, which knocked out service at all terminals at one time or another. “We had a disaster recovery plan for fuel. All our facilities operated on natural-gas backup generators.”

O’Kane illustrated progress by saying the company typically handles about 6,500 shipments per day but still has an accumulated total of 1,000 shipments that can’t be delivered.

Other LTL carriers also reported progress and problems.

“FedEx Freight is continuing to recover and we are providing near-normal service in areas that are safe to do so,” spokeswoman Debra Phillips told TT. “We continue to face challenges in the hardest hit areas. Customers should expect delays if they live or work in areas that are inaccessible.”

“Notwithstanding the [Nov. 7] nor’easter, we’re back up and running at all of our service centers along the Eastern seaboard,” ABF Freight spokesman Russ Aikman said, who also noted power and access problems.

Con-way Freight and YRC Worldwide also resumed LTL operations throughout the region.