Residual effects of Hurricane Hanna to slow cross-border freight for days

Dive Brief:

• Hanna, which made landfall in Texas as a hurricane Saturday night, moved west Monday, dumping up to a foot of rain in southern Texas and northern Mexico and slowing border crossings.
• Major northbound routes from Mexico were operating at 50% capacity Monday with some closures due to landslides and flooding.
• Kansas City Southern’s Matamoros to Monterrey, Mexico, line flooded Sunday along with its Monterrey yard, causing the railroad to interrupt service for repairs in both locations. A customer service advisory says repairs will be complete by Tuesday morning, weather permitting. Union Pacific temporarily suspended service between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, Texas, Saturday night and reopened Sunday morning.

Dive Insight:

The U.S. National Hurricane Center stopped issuing advisories for Hanna Monday morning, but the intense rain and wind could slow freight moving between the U.S. and Mexico for days.

Laredo, the busiest border crossing for freight between the U.S. and Mexico, was largely spared the heavy rainfall, receiving less than an inch of rain, said Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather meteorologist and VP and general manager of AccuWeather For Business.

But any closure of the major roads between Saltillo and Monterrey in Mexico, however temporary, brings on a “chain reaction,” resulting in delays at the World Trade Bridge in Laredo, Texas, Deepak Chhugani, CEO of cross-border freight forwarder Nuvocargo, told Supply Chain Dive. Transit times at the World Trade Bridge were running roughly 30 minutes slower than normal in both directions Tuesday morning, according to FourKites.

Flooding in Saltillo was waist-high. Southern Texas and northern Mexico saw six to 12 inches of rainfall — including the section of Highway 40D running between Reynosa and Monterrey, Porter told Supply Chain Dive.

“Our experience is that transportation networks where the road or rail has been washed out can generally be repaired within 24 to 48 hours, but if flooding was so severe that bridges or other infrastructure need to be replaced – repairs can take many more days to weeks to complete in order to return networks to their operating conditions before the storm,” said Porter. “Showers and thunderstorms will likely continue in northeast Mexico for the next couple of days which may lead to additional transportation impacts from further flooding.”