Hurricane Ian has battered Cuba, the Florida Keys and southwest Florida over the past several days and is now bringing fierce winds and rains up the East Coast. Officials are calling it “catastrophic” and one of the strongest storms to ever hit Florida. It made landfall as a category 4 storm with 140 mile-per-hour winds, downing trees and creating life-threatening storm surges.
More than 2 million Floridians had lost power by Thursday morning; this just 48 hours after the storm left the entire island of Cuba in a blackout, killing at least two people and decimating the country’s iconic tobacco farms. According to Everstream Analytics, the sector facing the biggest harm is agriculture, as the storm is causing extensive crop damage just ahead of the harvest season.
South Florida produces 70% of the nation’s citrus crops, for example, exporting to Canada, France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, as Ian moves north, it may strike cotton, soybean and tobacco production in the Southeast. Of course, having fewer crops causes higher produce prices, worsening already elevated inflation.
“More than 4,500 factories, warehouses and distribution centers — which produce or distribute about 74,000 parts, for everything from electronics to chemicals — are in the projected storm zone,” says Bindya Vakil, CEO of supply chain risk management firm Resilinc. Vakil estimates that the companies Resilinc monitors alone have more than $20 billion in revenue at stake.
Meanwhile, multiple ports have closed or will be closing as the storm approaches, delaying container and fuel shipping. And airports and airlines from Miami to Charlotte are closing or canceling flights, affecting freight delivery. As ASCM Executive Vice President Douglas Kent told CNN, all of this puts additional strain on an already fragile supply chain.
Interestingly, a similar story is playing out across the globe as Typhoon Noru devastates the Philippines and Vietnam, causing extensive flooding and leaving at least eight people dead. If this tragic list feels familiar, it’s probably because this type of major weather event has become quite common, as climate change takes a heavier toll each year. According to The New York Times, global warming is worsening storms by causing higher winds, more rain, slower storm progression and more volatility. In fact, Ian has become the 46th Category 4 or 5 hurricane in the Atlantic over the past 20 years. That’s equal to the number that occurred during the last four decades of the 20th century.
Preparing for the inevitable
I’ve written many times about major hurricanes in the United States, including Harvey and Ida, not to mention both extreme heatwaves and severe cold snaps. Additionally, an ASCM Insights Blog article recently detailed key risk management steps, including centering leadership, playing out what-if scenarios and investing in key assets — particularly the safety of workers. If your supply chain hasn’t already been “weather-proofed,” now’s the time to do so, another ASCM blog article explains.
Risk mitigation is a key element of all aspects of supply chain management, as detailed in the updated Supply Chain Operations Reference Digital Standard (SCOR DS). The new SCOR DS is the greatest modernization to SCOR since inception, shifting thinking from a linear supply chain model to a more synchronous network. The adoption of SCOR enables supply chain organizations to achieve organizational goals while safeguarding and preparing their networks for whatever the future brings. Interested in learning more? Sign up for a free course that details how the SCOR DS framework operates and what it can do for your business.
