Gut-wrenching week for transportation ends with Port of New York/New Jersey closed; other ports reopen

A nightmarish week for transportation—and for everything else—in the country's most densely populated region drew to a close as the supply chain began to recover from the mega-storm known as Sandy.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's marine terminals remained closed until further notice, according to a Nov. 2 statement on the port authority's website. The statement made no mention of a possible reopen date. By that time, all ports south of New Jersey down to North Carolina had reopened.

As of Friday, UPS Inc. had resumed near-normal operations, though it still was not providing service to 17 ZIP codes in New Jersey and 10 ZIP codes in the New York City area. FedEx Corp. continued to suspend service for its FedEx Express air unit in 19 cities and towns in New Jersey, including battered Hoboken across the Hudson River from New York. In New York itself, FedEx Express was not providing service in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Express service had been restored everywhere else in the affected region, FedEx said. FedEx's ground parcel and less-than-truckload operations have all been restored.

The storm is "still leaving difficult conditions and continues to affect FedEx operations," the company said in an alert on its website. "Unavoidable service delays should be expected" due to still-hazardous local road conditions, FedEx said. UPS made essentially the same statement on its website.

Both companies have pledged a combined $2.7 million to relief efforts.

CSX Corp., one of the two main Eastern railroads, said service on its network has been fully restored, although trains in the Northeast continue to operate slowly due to power outages and problems with connecting rail carriers. CSX lifted all embargoes except for intermodal traffic to the still-closed marine terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

"Customers should continue to expect delays of at least 72 hours for traffic operating near or through the region as a backlog of traffic held out of the storm-impacted area is worked off and customers gradually come back on line," CSX said on its website. "In addition, commercial power outages continue to result in slower operations over some routes."

As of Nov. 2, Norfolk Southern Corp., the other Eastern railroad, hadn't updated the status of its network since a few days earlier, when it said that heavily impacted areas wouldn't be operational until week's end. A customer service representative contacted by telephone Friday said that, to his knowledge, the railroad had resumed service over all of its once-affected routes.