This massive snowstorm will test the US supply chain

Here it comes. As many as two-thirds of the United States Confront the threat of dangerous snow, hail and ice this weekend, with roads (and the businesses that depend on them) likely to be disrupted Texas Up to New York City. At this point, grocery stores, logistics experts, warehouse operators and trucking companies have been preparing for several days. However, the effects on the supply chain – and the retail store shelves that depend on it – have yet to be determined.

On the one hand, this is winter business as usual. Snow storms happen every year, and the shipping industry has a playbook.

“If you’re a retailer, this happens all the time,” says Chris Caples, chief scientist at transportation management firm DAT Freight & Analytics. “For people in the supply chain, this is just another Tuesday.”

On the other hand, the places where this storm occurs and its extent constitute an additional challenge.

“This storm is kind of tough, because there aren’t a lot of snowstorms that hit the states that this storm hits,” says Chris Long, executive vice president of operations at Capstone Logistics, a third-party logistics company. Affected Southern states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, are often equipped to handle hurricanes, with networks of distribution centers set up to distribute what is often needed after this type of storm: generators, water and plywood. But if roads in those states, less equipped for the cold, freeze over for several days — a “worst-case scenario,” Long says — buyers could see shortages of some perishable items, including food and medicine.

To prevent this, retailers have spent the past few days placing specific inventory they know customers will need — for example, snow shovels, bottled water, canned goods and de-icers — in local distribution warehouses, where they can quickly reach store shelves. Large trucking companies have positioned their vehicles and employees where they are likely to be needed; Independent truck drivers may have cleared the route.

Next week, while everyone is excavating or clearing snow from the storm, shipping rates will likely rise, Caples says, as shippers try to get the supply chain going again. But that kind of shock will likely be priced into retailers’ businesses — it is winter, after all — and won’t affect the prices customers see when they check out. He says uncertainty in the shipping industry this year over tariffs and immigration is a much bigger problem. “This will just be a flash.”

Whatever the next few days hold, businesses are likely better equipped to respond than they were before the pandemic, and when Lockdowns have disrupted global supply chains. “When I first got into the industry, it was all about.”Just in time“The pandemic has made retailers, and the shipping companies that support them, more focused on stocking up and weathering the unexpected,” says Long, who has worked for years in the grocery industry. “We’re in a much better place,” he says.