A crane operator at a busy port shared alarming video of a massive amount of shipping containers stacked up undelivered, highlighting a breakdown in the nation’s supply chain.
The video was shared on October 13 by TikTok user stanimal18. It has already been viewed more than 3.6 million times.
The video clip was captured at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to Newsweek.
In the video, stanimal18 explains that the container yard is “stuffed to the hilt” and says “we need truck drivers to pick up their goods.” He goes on to explain that many of the operations at the port are automated and that the truck drivers moving containers around are “robots.”
A second video gives viewers a closer look at the automated operations at the port.
The backlog of shipping containers has been blamed on a variety of factors including staffing issues at the ports and increased consumer spending amid the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wall Street Journal reports that hundreds of thousands of containers are backlogged at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and that dozens of cargo ships are anchored at sea, facing weeks-long wait times to deliver.
This week, the Biden Administration announced that the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would move to 24/7 operations to try to clear the container backlogs. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) says that workers are prepared to staff the ports around the clock.
Biden has also called on the private sector — and the trucking industry in particular — to step up to ease supply chain woes.
The White House has secured the following commitments from some of the nation’s largest companies to expand operations to help move an additional 3,500 containers per week during nighttime hours:
- The nation’s largest retailer, Walmart, is committing to increase its use of night-time hours significantly and projects they could increase throughput by as much as 50% over the next several weeks.
- UPS is committing to an increased use of 24/7 operations and enhanced data sharing with the ports, which could allow it to move up to 20 percent more containers from the ports.
- FedEx is committing to work to combine an increase in night time hours with changes to trucking and rail use to increase the volume of containers it will move from the ports. Once these changes are in place, they could double the volume of cargo they can move out of the ports at night.
- Samsung is committing to move nearly 60% more containers out of these ports by operating 24/7 through the next 90 days. 72% of U.S. homes have at least one Samsung product, from appliances to consumer electronics.
- The Home Depot is committing to move up to 10% additional containers per week during the newly available off-peak port hours at the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach.
- Target, which is currently moving about 50 percent of its containers at night, has committed to increasing that amount by 10 percent during the next 90 days to help ease congestion at the ports.
