Delays at Port of Seattle ‘going to get worse before it gets better’

“One of the really unfortunate situations is that it’s still going to get worse before it gets better, most likely due to the fact that the holiday rush is still in front of us,” said Fred Felleman, port commission president. “So that’s concerning.”

That’s the message from the Port of Seattle in regards to the shipping delays that are clogging up ports along the West Coast.

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After President Biden urged the private sector to help ease supply chain blockages that are threatening to disrupt the U.S. holiday season, Northwest Seaport Alliance CEO John Wolfe said they may get closer to around-the-clock hours by adding more shifts.

“We are looking at exploring extended gate hours across all of our five or six international container terminals,” Wolfe said.

The Port of Seattle says it would like to get things moving and back on track before the weather in the Puget Sound really begins to turn. The Coast Guard has indicated that it is concerned some unanchored vessels waiting to pull into port could be in trouble when winter windstorms hit.

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Meanwhile, shipping backups in West Coast ports are causing supply chain problems across the country. But there are multiple reasons why so many ships are waiting to be off-loaded.

In the Puget Sound area, Jordan Royer of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association blames the problem not on the longshore workers but on a shortage of truck drivers.

“If people aren’t picking up the boxes, it doesn’t really do much good to have extended gate hours,” he told KIRO 7 TV.

Royer says most local terminals here already work around the clock unloading ships and there are still more than half-a-dozen waiting offshore right now.