Hurricanes and Your Supply Chain

Hurricane Ian

Hurricane Ian is making landfall today, and with winds of up to 155 mph (almost Category 5 status) it is expected to “barrel its way” from the Naples area this morning to Orlando this evening. At a press conference this morning, Governor Ron DeSantis said that Ian “is going to have major, major impacts in terms of wind, in terms of rain, in terms of flooding, so this is going to be a nasty, nasty day–two days.”

Here at AM Transport, we are watching the storm, and our hearts go out to our friends in Florida in the storm’s path–all those who are evacuating and those who are hunkering down. Storms like Hurricane Ian can reverberate in people’s lives for weeks, months, and even years to come.

As a logistics company, working to ensure safe, secure, and on-time pickup and deliveries for the manufacturers and distributors we serve, we know that storms like Ian can also upend supply chains.

Eric Kulisch, writing for Freightwaves reports that “experts are predicting severe disruption to supply chains from flooding, power outages and wind damage that could stall factory and farm production, as well as freight movement through major port, airport, highway and rail nodes. The Tampa-to-Orlando corridor is chockablock full of huge retail and e-commerce distribution centers.”

How to ensure your supply chain can weather bad weather.

So often, it’s difficult to understand how a storm in Florida can affect your supply chain in the midwest, but when you ship goods by trucks that’s exactly what happens.

You see, most domestic trucking companies operate in a hub and spoke network. Trucks in the hub have outbound freight that drives them away from their home base. But in order to return home (and to make money on that return trip), these trucks need inbound freight.

These runs in and out from the hub are fairly predictable and that helps freight brokers like AMT create freight networks, contract freight, and stabilize rates for manufacturers like you. But when a hurricane slams the coast, things get chaotic fast. And that creates a ripple effect because bad weather in one area of the country can prevent trucks from following their normal routes, disrupting multiple freight networks.

And it’s not over in a week or two. Sometimes the disruption lasts for weeks, severely limiting truck capacity and elevating rates.

The Weather Effect: How Bad Weather Disrupts Supply Chains

We’re here to help.

The team here at AM Transport Services has been down this road before. We’ve been working with the best small-to-mid sized carriers in the midwest for 33 years. During that time, we’ve helped manufacturers and distributors of all sizes deliver their freight during good times and bad. It’s what we do. 

When extreme weather occurs, we’ve got the connections, the technology, the knowledge, and the best logistics team in the midwest. We’ll ensure you weather the storms.