Posted on: Friday, November 21, 2003

Cargo-container catastrophe would paralyze world's ports

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

A weapon of mass destruction unleashed on a shipping container at sea would close American ports for weeks or months, strand cargo sitting in trucks and trains and could even trigger a global recession, attendees of the Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit & Exposition at the Hilton Hawaiian Village were told yesterday.

Security officials would virtually shutter the shipping industry following a terrorist attack as they scrutinize cargo in the aftermath of an attack, said Grant McKinstry, a senior partner with Unisys.

McKinstry quoted a Brookings Institution estimate that a weapon of mass destruction set off on a shipping container would have a $1 trillion economic ripple effect.

"With some 21,000 containers hitting U.S. docks each day — and tens of thousands more hitting docks around the world — it's a global risk of daunting odds," according to a Unisys summary of the problem.

McKinstry outlined a global shutdown that would follow a terrorist attack on a single shipping container.

"Mega-ports in Europe and Asia would probably be forced to close their gates as containers pile up in their piers," McKinstry said. "Commercial traffic would become gridlocked. Trucks, trains, barges would be stranded outside of terminals and would not really have any capacity to unload their cargo. Service contracts most likely would have to be renegotiated to reflect the new realities of trade."

Hawai'i, the site of the security summit, got a taste of the problem in 2002 with a 10-day dockworker strike on the West Coast.

The members of a panel looking at the safety of shipping containers talked about pilot security projects under way. But there is no global consensus among companies and nations about devices and procedures to ensure security among ports.

And it's unclear who would pay for increased security measures — although some panelists assumed the burden would fall on businesses.

"There's a lot of work to be done, it's clear," McKinstry said. "We have to find a way to improve our existing supply chain operations. Nobody knows for sure who's going to foot the bill for this. But I would hazard to guess that the private sector is going to pay for most of the security."

The key, said Andrew Maner, chief of staff of the U.S. Bureau of Customs & Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is "increasing security at the borders without choking off trade."

He believes that government and business should share in the cost and companies already have done much to increase shipping security.

Everyone agreed that much more work remains and that countries and companies need to collaborate on finding security systems that work — without harming the shipping industry.

"We really can't kill the patient with the cure here," McKinstry said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.