Fleets dealing with effects from the COVID-19 crisis — from low rates to concerns about worker safety — are about to enter another danger zone: hurricane season.
And it could be an active one. Penn State University recently released its annual hurricane forecast, estimating 20 named storms.
“The good thing about hurricanes is you usually have time to prepare,” Rick Todd, president and CEO of the South Carolina Trucking Association, told Transport Dive in an interview. Fleets, especially those that operate in the southeastern US, are no strangers to hurricanes. They know how to prepare and then move supplies after storm damage is cleared and recovery begins.
But COVID-19 is a big unknown. “Nobody’s got a playbook for this,” he said. Different sectors of the industry are being hit differently, but overall the industry “is probably more engaged right now in just dealing with [COVID-19] and hoping and praying that we have a good, easy hurricane season,” Todd said.
Fleets can take lessons learned from past risk events to develop a plan to manage COVID-19 and hurricane season simultaneously. Experts say that by prioritizing worker safety, reviewing insurance policies and having visibility in their supply chain, fleets can be prepared to handle the two risk events… Transport Dive