So, will the container ships coming across the Pacific (or now in the L.A./L.B. harbor) be able to fit through the Panama canal?
So, will the container ships coming across the Pacific (or now in the L.A./L.B. harbor) be able to fit through the Panama canal?
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The maximum allowable capacity of the canal is 37 to 42 ship transits per day.
So it would take over 3 days just to clear the Long Beach back up another 3 for LA. then they would have to go to ports that have the capacity to handle them. The question then is which ports other than New York-New Jersey can handle many container ships larger than 5000 containers which is most of them from Asia ; Port Authority of New York did one at 16,000 but that is smaller than the 20-24,000 sizes the west coast handles.
Smaller ships means lower cargo per ship, means more ships needed to carry the excess, means higher shipping prices on top of the extra expense of Asian ships unloading on the east coast.
Port of Tampa Bay (the largest in Florida) can only handle container ships of 10,000 per - too small to make a dent.