Storm snarls Pacific Northwest freight movement

Storm snarls Pacific Northwest freight movement A massive winter storm in the Pacific Northwest has snarled freight movement throughout the region with flooded highways, rail lines, and waterways.
   Despite floodwaters rapidly receding and most of the affected routes set to be opened today, the closures and delays have cost the regional economy tens of millions in loss productivity.
   The two-day storm finally moved on Tuesday, leaving in its wake massive areas of land, homes and businesses underwater. The governors of Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency in the affected areas. The storm, the last of three severe weather systems to hit the region, is also being blamed for at least two deaths.
   Transportation systems in the region were particularly hard hit. The storm delayed cargo vessels throughout the Columbia River coastal area and prevented vessels from entering or exiting the Columbia River following a closure by the U.S. Coast Guard. While the waterway was expected to reopen today, the three-day backlog will take some time to clear out, leading to more delays as the backed up cargo blocks other cargoes headed in or out of the area.
   “The ships just keep piling up,” Mark Hanson, vice president in Portland of steamship agency Transmarine Navigation Corp told the Oregonian.
   Vessels such as the 31,000-ton Bianco Dan bulker and the Marinus Green, a 12,000-ton Dutch-flagged ship loaded down with windmill towers from China, waited out the storm anchored outside the river mouth.
   At the Washington state Port of Vancouver, a bulk vessel was forced to wait out the storm at berth, costing the operator $20,000 in extra crew costs.
   In Grays Harbor, Wash., where high winds caused widespread power outages, a newly opened $78 million biodiesel plant stopped producing fuel due to loss of power and suffered minor damage. Officials said the plant, the largest in the United States, would restart as soon as power was restored.
   At the Port of Seattle, officials reported no damage, but told the Seattle Times, “we’re knocking on all sorts of wood.” The nearby Sea-Tac International Airport reported no problems other than a brief one-lane closure of an approaching highway. The 1,700-TEU Kauai, Matson Navigation Co. containership, was damaged after being hit by a large ocean swell off Cape Flattery in Northwest Washington at the mouth of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. The swell broke the vessel's wheelhouse windows, saturating electronic systems and disabling the vessel's main steering systems. The vessel was escorted by a Crowley Maritime rescue tug to the nearby Port of Angeles, where another tug took over to guide the vessel to the Port of Seattle for repairs.
   Highways in the region took a hard hit from the storm, with several stretches remaining underwater today.
   While hundreds of truckers were hunkered down in rest stops, weigh stations and along roadsides awaiting the reopening of several key roadways including Interstate 5, the Washington Department of Transportation estimated that the closures would result in millions of dollars a day in losses to the state economy.
   Washington DOT officials estimated that about 11,000 trucks a day use a portion of the I-5 in Lewis County that remains under several feet of water. State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond estimated Tuesday that the closure's economic impact was hitting $4 million a day, though industry experts predicted it could be closer to $6 million a day.
   Even the region's rail system was not immune. More than 50 trains a day move up and down BNSF Railway tracks that parallel much of I-5. While some of these trains have been diverted around the affected tracks, BNSF officials said that the flooding has affected 40 percent of freight rail traffic throughout the state of Washington.
   BNSF said it hopes to resume freight train operations along the I-5 corridor sometime today.
   The National Weather Service said the storm dropped an average of 4 to 6 inches of rain across most of the area, though some localized areas reported much higher numbers. The city of Bremerton, located about 15 miles west of Seattle, said a record 10.78 inches of rain fell in the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Monday.
   More than 10 counties in Washington state remained under a National Weather Service flood warning as of today.