"Everybody's madly trying to figure out which ships are going to where and when they'll arrive at their destination," said Paramount Export President Nick Kukulan, who ships about $100 million of perishables such as peaches, pears, plums and vegetables annually.

Carriers want some terminals to stay open during early morning hours that they are normally closed, and the union said it couldn't provide all the workers carriers were requesting to clear the backlog of goods.

Bush used the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to open the 29 ports before holiday shopping starts, saying the lockout that began Sept. 29 over a contract dispute was costing the economy as much as $1 billion a day.

For Hawai'i, the resumption of West Coast dock activity means ships that have been waiting for days will be worked first instead of ships that would have been loaded under the exemption to the shutdown granted by the shipping companies to the state late last week.

While the backlog may delay the normal resumption of service to the Islands, the state's two biggest shipping companies were able to get several ships loaded with cargo and under way for Hawai'i under the exemption granted the state.

The first cargo ship to arrive in Hawai'i since the shutdown will be a CSX Lines ship scheduled to reach Honolulu tomorrow.

Still, because the backlog is so great, departure dates for more ships bound for Hawai'i are hard to pin down, Matson Navigation Co. spokesman Jeff Hull said today.

A Matson container ship off Los Angeles was scheduled to leave tonight, however, and two others could leave this weekend, Hull said. It usually takes about 4› days to cross the Pacific, Hull said.

Hull could not predict when Matson would be sailing on a normal schedule of four arrivals a week. Ships are being worked on a first-come, first-served basis to clear the backlog.

"It has to do with the allocation of labor and where you are in line," Hull said. "There are no preferences at this time and there are a lot of ships."

In Oakland, the third-largest West Coast port, the union was able to supply 180 of 431 workers the carriers group asked for late yesterday, Richard Mead, president of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, told reporters.

The carriers ordered 512 workers for tomorrow and the union has only been able to supply 310, he said.

The cargo pileup at California, Oregon and Washington ports that handle about $300 billion in cargo a year may take nine weeks to clear, said Joe Miniace, chief executive of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents ocean carriers and terminal operators.

Steve Sugerman, a spokesman for the carriers association, said he couldn't say whether the union failed to provide requested labor in other ports.

"We are going to work according to the court ruling," union spokesman Steve Stallone said. "The court order directed us to work according to the contract. The docks are incredibly congested."

District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered the ports opened through Oct. 16. The court will hear a government request for an 80-day cooling-off period under the Taft-Hartley Act next week. The union said it may keep adhering to safety rules, a practice carriers call a work slowdown that prompted the lockout.

About 200 ships waited to unload containers, with about 120 at anchor or at berth in Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Reid Crispino, operations manager with the Marine Exchange.

"It's going to be a slow process to get this going," said Patty Edwards, who helps manage about $2 billion in assets for Laird Norton Trust Co., including shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. "A lot of the new fashion for the late fall and early winter season is sitting on boats in various ports up and down the West Coast. This was the exact wrong time" for a shutdown.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., the second-biggest U.S. railroad, moved its first train at 5:30 a.m. local time, with 164 loads of women's clothing, sofas and other merchandise.

"Getting back up to speed affects more than moving goods from the West Coast," said Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman Patrick Hiatte. "You have to have an orderly resumption of service because freight is also moving westbound."

Toyota Motor Corp. said today that the shutdown may reduce October U.S. sales of cars and light trucks as much as 15 percent. Japan's biggest automaker probably will deliver about 50,000 fewer vehicles to dealers this month because of the delays, said Toyota Vice President Don Esmond.

Gap Inc., the largest clothing chain, had a 2 percent sales decline in September, its 29th monthly drop. The owner of Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy stores said delays in getting merchandise into stores because of the port closings may reduce fourth-quarter profit as much as 7 cents a share.