Could the port strikes create a pandemic-era shortage in Oklahoma? What experts say

A decision by the Longshoremen’s union to go on strike days after storms devastated North Carolina and Tennessee is seen by one Oklahoma transportation executive as “adding insult to injury” and risking a repeat of shortages seen during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic .

Such warnings of likely supply disruptions are being voiced by representatives of Oklahoma farmers and truck drivers in response to strikes at several shipping ports on the east and Gulf coasts on Tuesday. The strikes are blocking the flow of automobile, food, clothing and even fertilizer critical to America's farms.

Rodd Moesel, president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, was attending a national board meeting Tuesday in Madison, Wisconsin, when the strikes began and was awaiting an update Wednesday on the full ramifications on agriculture.

“In the briefings we got a couple of weeks ago, just being shut down for two weeks would create a backup that wouldn’t get caught up until January," Moesel said. “As we saw with COVID, when anything affects distribution, you will have disruption in supply chains that will impact food prices.”

The strikes' impact on Oklahoma's economy was not clear on Wednesday, but a JPMorgan analysis cited by USA Today estimates the national impact at $5 billion a day while putting pressure on supply chains across the country. Ports from Maine to Texas were shuttered after the International Longshoremen's Association called its first strike since 1977, putting thousands of workers on the picket line and stranding ships and containers at facilities central to the global economy.

Hurricane Helene washed out parts of I-40, creating even more distribution problems

The strikes coincide with traffic snarls and long delays for truck drivers caused by extensive storm damage along Interstate 40 that is expected to take months to repair.

Jim Newport, president of the Oklahoma Trucking Association, said the impact of the I-40 shutdown will hurt the supply chain for North Carolina and Tennesse the most. He said the association is organizing an effort to get drivers signed up to help deliver supplies to the worst hit areas.

“It creates havoc regionally,” Newport said. “Your shipping routes have to be altered.”

More: Oklahoma rescue team saves four trapped in Hurricane Helene floodwaters

Newport predicted the impact of just one week of a port shutdown will be felt by consumers for up to six weeks before the supply chain is restored.

“It’s adding insult to injury,” Newport said. “There will be similarities in terms of shipping as we experienced in the COVID pandemic. People will immediately think of bare shelves and I'm not suggesting that. And we don’t know when there will be an agreement. But the issue is similar."

During the pandemic, Newport said, ships loaded with goods were stuck at sea waiting to come into ports.

Moesel said the strike impact will be significant if there is already a shortage of fertilizer already on the ports waiting to be picked up for delivery.

Will Oklahoma see a food and goods shortage?

Not everyone agreed the strikes will hurt Oklahoma.

Andrew Ralston, director of economic development at Tulsa Ports, a port authority using barge, rail and truck, said he thinks the strike will mostly impact states along the two coasts. With a majority of consumer goods coming into Oklahoma via rail and truck from California, Ralston said the strikes will have little immediate effect on shipments made to the state.

Companies dependent on those ports face large financial consequences, Ralston said. Additional delays or distance to shipments adds costs depending on which commodities are being shipped and when deliveries take place. Nearly 50% of ocean shipping takes place at affected ports, according to Reuters.

Companies could lose a lot of money if deliveries fail to make it to their intended consumers. They could lose to their competitors. Meanwhile, they still have to pay for the product sitting at the ports.

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"Every day that you hold a shipping container on a boat, you are paying for a lease on that shipping container," Ralston said. "You are paying crew of the ship to be on board, and you're paying for dwell time of the boat for fuel and other things to make it operate."

Equipment, cargo vehicles and customer reimbursements also contribute to extra costs.

Ralston added that if strikes continue indefinitely, states in the middle of the country like Oklahoma, might start to see the impact of the strikes a bit more.

"If they continue to go on, I could see a situation [where] commodities that we produce here and export could be delayed and could add a cost to our main exports, like grain," Ralston said. "You'll see some beef exports [impacted]. You'll see things that are mainly agricultural and in bulk, but the entities that transload that cargo are often part of a different union or different model than what we're seeing on strike right now."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Could the port strikes create a pandemic-era shortage in Oklahoma? What experts say