florida Archives - Supply Chain Institute

Hurricane Impacts on Transportation

We leveraged our KanoPI shipper intelligence platform to dig deep into hurricane impacts. Here’s what we found;

Market surcharges due to hurricane activity were the costliest of added fees in 2017 with a total cost of $673,000.91.

Data shows that the Average Cost Per Load after the 8/26 hurricane went up by $159.58, or 11% and that the Average Cost Per Mile increased by 15%.

915 fewer loads moved after the hurricane (date of 8/26/2017) when compared to previous four-month period. This tells us that people were holding on to shipments that would typically have moved into key areas like Florida, Texas, and surrounding states.

Looking specifically at Florida, there was an 8% drop in volume and 3.4% drop in spending. This shows that for shipments still moved, rates were higher.

Hurricanes brought prolonged delays. Looking at the data, we can see that average transit days went from 2.65 to 2.95, which is an increase of 10.17%.

The UK was recently subjected to an extreme cold spell that saw widespread disruption across the UK. Dozens of rail services and flights were delayed or cancelled, thousands of schools were closed, a raft of homes were left without power in certain parts of the country and many people struggled to get to work in the snowy and icy conditions.

This short spell of disruption would have come at a cost to the UK economy, but in reality we should be thankful we’re not subjected to the extremes of weather that can impact other parts of the world. Anyone remember the scenes we saw on our TVs in the wake of Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean and Florida? In addition to the devastation caused to thousands of families’ homes, businesses were left in turmoil too. Florida, for example saw the price of its diesel soar and shipping and trucking capacity was severely limited in the region. It is estimated that the economic cost of the storm which has caused significant damage to homes, businesses and crops could be as much as £227bn.

The knock on effect of the storm’s impact is still being felt, especially for any businesses with suppliers based in the storm-damaged regions. This event highlights the increasing risks businesses face when they have a supply base in a region that could be affected by adverse weather or other environmental factors such as earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions.

No matter where in the world your critical supply base is located it is essential that businesses ask their suppliers the right questions from the start of their relationship. Even with non-business critical purchasing activity, adopting a proactive approach to on-boarding/supplier evaluation and supplier contracting means that you can assess your suppliers and ask questions about disaster recovery, insurances, and best practice around handling large scale environmental events from the outset. Sounds obvious, but it’s very easy to overlook this line of questioning, especially if purchasing is being done on a decentralised basis.

Read more at Making sure it’s business as usual, whatever the weather

Leave your comments below and subscribe us to get updates in your inbox.