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What a lot of people don't know is that the Port of New Orleans covers a huge amount of territory. After Katrina, some of the Terminals and berths (mainly along France Rd.) were no longer deep enough to handle big vessels and some adjustments have been made to deal with that. For example, containers that were unloaded, stored, and loaded at the terminal operated by APM Terminals (owned by AP Moeller, which also owns Maersk-Sealand) are now being handled on the part of the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal that is operated by Ceres Gulf (a subsidiary of NYK, a shipping and logistics company from Japan). This is because vessels cannot call at the former APM Terminal because it is too full of silt to handle deep water vessels. The other part of the Terminal is managed by P&O, which also has breakbulk and other cargo operations at Nashville Avenue. Most of the people who work for Ceres Gulf and P&O in New Orleans are natives of New Orleans. However, Dubai World has a history of "cleaning house" after they take over a company. They fired a number of high-level execs when they took over CSX. So, the future's not bright for some of the people who work for P&O Ports, Louisiana.
The Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, which is sandwiched between the Milan Street Wharf and the Nashville Avenue wharves, sustained very little damage. When the Terminal was built, the most amazing flood walls (2 layers) I've ever seen were built around it. Vessels have been calling at the Terminal since about September 21. The software used to manage the Terminal's two yards has been operational since October and the software that controls truck entry
By January 9, the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal was seeing traffic that was about 75% of pre-Katrina traffic.
You might be wondering how I know all this - my company designed and built the software that automated the gate for the Napoleon Aveneu Terminal (it controls truck entry) and I worked on that site for a nearly a year. I handle the help desk for truck lines that need to learn the system.
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