Vulnerability of ports / shipping closure

[windswept]

This morning on the Diane Rehm show on NPR, they were talking about the security of the nation's ports. One of the guests brought up an interesting point... that because there are so many different opportunities along the supply chain, if a dirty bomb or other device were to arrive somewhere in the U.S. via container, the U.S. would have no choice

Comments

[sunfell]

I've been wondering what my first purchase from Emergency Essentials should be. I think it'll be the collapsable set of 5-gallon water bags and boxes- 25 gallons of water capacity. I don't have a place for a water barrel (I really want a garage, badly), but the collapsable boxes can be stored until they need to be filled. A water filter wouldn't hurt, either. They're a bit of a budget stretch, but purchasing one with some extra filter canisters couldn't hurt.

It's really easy to add an extra bit of stuff for your emergency pantry when you're doing your normal grocery run- some powdered milk here, some boullion cubes there, some rice, beans, sauce mixes, spices, etc... It's amazing how well some rice with beans and proper seasonings will stretch. Or how much stuff you can do with noodles.

[siliconshaman]

This post made me wonder, just how many ports do most containers come through?

In the usa there's less than 10 container capabe ports in the east coast, 3 on the great Lakes and 5 on the west coast... that's not many targets.

Britian, [where I live] is worse... we have 3 ports for the entire country.

There are lesser ports of course,and ones that could be used... but nearly 95% of the worlds container fleet could only fit in specially designed ports. Some of the largest ships are only able to dock at one or two of the larger places in each country.

Talk about eggs and baskets!