Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is saving Christmas by offering state ports to cargo ships waiting off the coast of California.
A Tiktok user shared video of a female pilot hovering her chopper over one of the first cargo ships to arrive at a Florida seaport.
Live footage of Governor DeSantis saving Christmas by rerouting cargo ships to Florida. pic.twitter.com/oEeWdw8eB3
— American Girl ? (@Yolo304741) October 27, 2021
More than 100 cargo ships have waited for weeks to unload at docks in Los Angeles and Long Beach. The reasons for the massive supply-chain bottleneck vary from California’s restrictive Covid-19 laws to not enough trucks.
However, truckers complain that there are enough trucks to haul away the goods. Some truckers shared videos on Twitter and TikTok, showing long lines of trucks waiting for days at the ports.
Gov. DeSantis offered to ease the bottleneck by rerouting cargo ships to offload their precious cargo at Florida’s 15 seaports.
“We’re here. We have capacity,” DeSantis said at a press conference.
“We have to make sure people can go Christmas shopping as normal,” DeSantis said.
“We have to make sure that all the necessities are there. And if it’s because ships are sitting off the coast somewhere else, and they can be rerouted here, and we can get all those shelves stocked, then we want to be a part of that solution.”
Florida seaports with direct access to railroads include Panama City, Port Everglades and the Jacksonville port.
Cargo ships that have waited for over a month off the California coast are making the 7-day journey through the Panama Canal to Florida.
There are costs to pass through the Panama Canal, but DeSantis said the expense is worth it to save Christmas.
“Our seaports are used to operating around the clock, they’re used to moving cargo for American families, farmers and businesses. And we think that this is a great solution given our capacity for some of the problems you see in other parts of the country.”
