As Harvey remains a menace, ALAN lays groundwork for long-term recovery efforts
Warehouse, DC space expected to spring up in Houston, Gulf Coast once floodwaters recede; pop-up warehouse to support huge redistribution operation, Fulton says.
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.
[Editor's note: This article was updated on Aug. 30 at 9: 54 a.m. ET to reflect recent developments with the storm.]
Humanitarian logistics measures to help rebuild the nation's fourth most populous city and
the Texas Gulf Coast are starting to take shape.
In the immediate term, the American Logistics Aid Network
(ALAN), which connects logistics resources with organizations involved in disaster recovery
efforts, is aiding Houstonians and residents in the state's coastal regions who have been
displaced by Hurricane, then tropical storm, Harvey. Kathy Fulton, ALAN's executive director,
put out multiple calls today for 10,000 to 100,000 square feet of warehouse space in Dallas,
Austin, and San Antonio, cities that will receive tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of
refugees in the coming days. There, relief organizations can store materiel that will be
needed for individuals and families to survive in hastily erected shelters.
Once the floodwaters recede and displaced people are provided with temporary housing, ALAN's
long-term work will begin. Fulton estimates a network of large warehouses will dot the region to help provide survivors with whatever is necessary to restore their lives. In addition, a huge, "pop-up" type
warehouse and DC, the location of which has yet to be determined, will spring up where volunteers
will accept donations not designated to a specific relief group. There, they will repackage and
palletize the goods as efficiently as possible and distribute them. A state agency will head up
the operation and contract out its day-to-day management. Relief organizations can use the
warehouse to store and pull goods as needed, Fulton said. Vehicles ranging from private cars to 53-foot trailers will be recruited for inbound moves to the warehouse, while trucks hired by relief organizations will largely handle outbound moves, she said.
Years of work lie ahead in Houston for ALAN, Fulton said. The group still works in areas of the
Northeast devastated by Superstorm Sandy nearly five years ago.
For now, ALAN and everybody else can only wait for Harvey to run its course. The storm regenerated itself over the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall again this morning, coming ashore east of Houston and near the Texas-Louisiana border where it is drenching Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and countless cities and towns. By the time Harvey departs later today or tomorrow, it is expected to have dropped 50 inches of rain on greater Houston, or as much as the area gets in a year.
The Port of Houston will remain closed today, and Houston's two main airports, George W. Bush
Intercontinental and William P. Hobby, are closed until further notice. Over 500 roadways in southeast
Texas were experiencing flood conditions as of this morning, according to
a post on the Texas Department of Transportation website.
Rail operations have been hamstrung by high waters and the inability of
trucks to pick up and deliver goods. Union Pacific Corp. (UP), the Omaha, Neb.-based railroad whose
network feeds directly into the area, has suspended operations from Brownsville, Texas, to Lake Charles,
La., due to high water and storm damage. UP said it can't access or inspect tracks and facilities in the
Houston area until the storms move out and the flooding recedes.
UP said the opening of routes through San Antonio will allow it to run north-south trains between
San Antonio and Hearne, Texas, 120 miles northwest of Houston, near College Station, Texas. UP's Laredo, Texas, gateway remains open to interchange traffic with the Mexican railroads, it said.
Atlanta-based UPS Inc., the nation's largest transportation company, has not changed its
status since late Monday when it said 728 zip codes in Texas and four in neighboring
Louisiana were experiencing some form of disruption.
The Chicago-based information technology provider project44 said it will offer its
less-than-truckload (LTL) transit time and visibility products as well as its truckload
visibility product free of charge for the next 30 days so that shippers can gain visibility
into what has become a compromised trucking network and make informed inventory management
decisions. "Real-time visibility can help optimize transportation routes during natural disasters,"
the company said in a statement. "Accurate, up-to-date transit times allow shippers to better forecast
inventory availability and deliver contingency plans for delayed shipments."
Consultancy FTR said that Harvey will "strongly affect" more than 7 percent of U.S.
trucking, with about 10 percent of all trucking operations impaired to some degree during the first week.
A portion of the country's trucking network will be compromised for as long as two weeks, FTR said. After
a month, about 2 percent of the national network and one-quarter of the regional system—skewed heavily towards
the Gulf—will be impacted. Regional services will absorb most of the dislocation, FTR said.
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.