Inside an 80,000-square-foot warehouse in Baltimore, Maryland, a young man unloads canned albacore tuna from the back of a truck and stacks it on a pallet. Once the pallets are full, they are wrapped in stretch plastic, transported by forklift, and stored with food from China, Europe, and South America.
“We've got lemon juice, we've got banana chips, we've got lots of olives,” said Sue Monaghan, walking between rows of stacked pallets.
Monaghan founded Baltimore International Warehouse Transportation in 1987. Currently, she has her four warehouses and her 70 employees. Before the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed last month, most of this cargo would have been shipped by container ship through the Port of Baltimore, just 10 minutes away. They are now arriving at the Port of Norfolk, Virginia, several hours to the south, or New York to the north.
“Other truckers are taking cars to warehouses where we would normally pick them up,” she said. “We lose that revenue because our own trucks come to pick it up.”
After the bridge collapsed on March 26, Monaghan still had some containers to receive at the Port of Baltimore, but he ended up having to lay off most of his drivers because the containers weren't coming in anymore. did not. She left the difficult conversations with her employees to her human resources manager, Kristen Perrin. Many of our employees have been with the company for many years.
“A lot of them knew it was coming and understood it, as expected,” Perrin said. “But that's probably the worst part of my job.”
A few weeks later, the state approved a worker retention grant for the company, allowing Monaghan to bring back his drivers and pay them at least eight hours a day.
“They don't have to collect unemployment insurance. It's not enough money for them to survive,” she says. “So we think we can keep them employed at least until the cargo gets back to Baltimore.”
IIn the meantime, the company has completed paperwork and permits to allow its drivers to pick up and deliver at the Ports of Norfolk and Philadelphia. Mr. Monaghan was able to recall all 16 of his staff and his drivers.
On a recent morning at the dispatch office, a large screen displayed each driver's location on a map. A week ago, the map would have been mostly empty. Currently, several names are being moved around the area with truck numbers and tracked by GPS.
“They don't like being tracked, but I love it,” Monaghan said with a laugh.
Early in the afternoon, one of those drivers parked in the garden. Laquan Jefferson had just returned from delivering an empty container to Norfolk. He has been driving for that company for his 8 years.
“It was tough to get a call saying, 'We're sorry, but we have to let you go,' and you have kids and you have to pay all the bills,” he said. “Fortunately, they called me back.”
He's still getting used to long drives. He started his day at 3 a.m., and it took him four and a half hours to get to Virginia.
“Whether I come back depends on what time I leave,” he said. “It took me six and a half hours to get home on Friday. I like driving, but I don't like sitting.”
Still, he would rather sit in traffic than stay home and not get paid.
“If you want to work, you really don't have a choice,” Jefferson said.
He might not have to make such long drives. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates it will reopen the port's main shipping lanes by the end of May. Sue Monaghan said that doesn't mean it will be business as usual right away.
“Ships won't be coming to Baltimore yet because the steamship lines aren't booking cargo to Baltimore until the channel opens,” she said. “So I think it's going to be another month, month and a half before these ships come back to Baltimore.”
All of this has been very beneficial to Mr. Monaghan's daughter Shannon, who is training to take over the business one day.
“She's well-educated,” Monaghan said.
When asked if she still wanted to continue running her business after this month's experience, Shannon Monaghan said, “Yes.” Then she started working for the company during another major disruption: the pandemic.
“We're still here, we're still going,” she said. “All of our trucks are here and on their way. This is great news for us.”
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