Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
A large part of the eastern United States today began bailing and digging out from an epic storm that seemingly brought everything but frogs and pestilence to the affected regions and doesn't show any signs of departing the mainland for at least another 24 hours.
As daylight broke and the waters receded from an unprecedented storm surge that hit the New York metropolitan area, it was
clear that the region's infrastructure would return to normalcy in slow, halting steps. The marine facilities operated by the
bi-state agency Port Authority of New York and New Jersey stayed closed today, with no word on when they will reopen. As of
1: 30 pm, seven New York City bridges had reopened; the rest remained closed to all but emergency personnel. The Lincoln
Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey is open, but others are closed. Additionally, sections of the New Jersey
Turnpike, a road heavily used by trucks, remain closed around Newark, N.J.
The Ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore also remained closed today. Joseph P. Menta, a Port of Philadelphia spokesman,
said officials are assessing the situation to determine a reopening date. He advised port users to check with their
respective marine terminals to get status updates.
Further south at the Port of Virginia, the situation was brighter. The port sustained no damage from the storm,
although it was closed yesterday. All terminals are open, and workers expect to be lading vessels this afternoon,
according to Joe Harris, a spokesman for the Virginia Port Authority. "We expect the next two to three days to be
busy as we clear the backlog," Harris said.
THE CONTINUING THREAT
While the worst of the storm is beyond it, the Eastern Seaboard may experience aftershocks today
in the form of storm surges coinciding with the afternoon high tide. Mark Hoekzema, chief meteorologist
for Earth Networks, a Germantown, Md.-based environmental research firm that also operates a weather center,
said during a morning briefing that the coastline abutting the New York area could see a 7- to 10-foot
storm surge, while Boston could experience a surge of between 5 and 7 feet.
For New York, however, any surge would be less than the record 14-foot wall of water that submerged Battery
Park in lower Manhattan last night, Hoekzema said.
Hoekzema said travel on interstate highways could be hazardous due to debris littering the roads. Most
interstates were closed off yesterday, but many have been reopened. Many state and local roads remain impassible, he said.
The biggest problem for interstate travel will be on the highways that run near or through mountain elevations that should
expect another foot of snow over the next two days on top of 20 to 30 inches of snow already on the ground, Hoekzema said.
RESPONSE FROM LOGISTICS COMMUNITY
UPS Inc. said this afternoon it will continue to suspend scheduled pickups, deliveries, and on-call pickups in
parts of 10 states and the District of Columbia. UPS is gradually restoring service in states like Maryland,
where earlier in the day, service was still suspended statewide. Rival FedEx Corp. said service delays can be
expected in 13 states and the District of Columbia.
Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., a leading real estate services and logistics company, said its industrial properties in the
region came through the storm unscathed except for some minor damage and power outages. The company manages approximately
30 million square feet of industrial property in the area covering New York, New Jersey, and central Pennsylvania,
according to Joanne Bestall, a company spokeswoman.
Meanwhile, the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) said today it has begun working with its relief agency partners to
identify their logistics resource needs and share them with concerned members of the supply chain community. ALAN connects
companies that are willing to contribute logistics goods and services to disaster relief agencies and organizations that need support.
"We are in communication with state, regional, and national Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOADs) as well as
emergency management agencies," said Jock Menzies, president of ALAN, in a statement. "We are standing by to provide assistance
for transportation services, staging areas, storage, expert advice, and other vital resources."
In conjunction with Rutgers University, New Jersey's state university, ALAN is collecting information on supply chain
disruptions to help identify potential resource shortfalls and determine where support from emergency and nonprofit
organizations may be needed most, the group said. To streamline relief efforts, ALAN is aggregating needs posted by
the affected states and listing them on the National Donations
Management Network (NDMN). This will save potential donors from reviewing each state's pOréal individually,
ALAN said.
To make in-kind donations of needed supply chain and logistics goods and services, visit ALAN's website.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.