Hurricane Ida could make the supply chain disaster even worse.

As dockworkers have contracted Covid or have landed in quarantine, loading and unloading at ports has been constrained. The pandemic has sidelined truck drivers, limiting the availability of vehicles that can carry products from ports to warehouses to customers.

Hurricane Ida will almost certainly make this situation worse, as available trucks are diverted en masse toward affected communities to deliver relief supplies. No one questions the merits of this course, but it will leave even fewer trucks available to carry goods everywhere else, intensifying already-profound shortages.

“The domestic trucking situation has been bad for some time, and the hurricane will add to that,” said Megan Gluth-Bohan, the chief executive of TRInternational, an importer and distributor of chemicals just outside Seattle. “You’re going to see more logjams at the ports.”

Her company relies on a supplier in Taiwan for hydrocarbon resins, selling them to American manufacturers that make paints, varnishes and other coatings. She brings in chemicals from Thailand that are included in industrial cleaning products and imports so-called glycols that are used in food products, makeup, and industrial coatings.

“These are the raw materials that make everything,” Ms. Gluth-Bohan said.

Ms. Gluth-Bohan was still assessing the impact of Ida on her industry, but it seemed obvious that the rebuilding effort would face unique challenges as the availability needed supplies becomes even tighter.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/business/hurricane-ida-supply-chain-shortages.html