The following is an update on the Wando Welch Terminal:
(1) On Wednesday, we handled 3901 gate transactions which is pretty close to that normally expected in this terminal. This was done with gate hours between 6 am and 9 pm, three hours more than normal, and this was certainly not at normally expected turn times. The software supplier implemented a program enhancement last night to address a concern that we had.
(2) We were moving along at a similar pace today until 1 pm, when the system had to be reset due to a technology issue. This issue was related to the software installed last night. The outage lasted slightly more than one hour. In one hour at this time of the day, we should handle in excess of 400 trucks and there is not enough queuing space so the truck traffic quickly backs up. We have received great cooperation from the Mt. Pleasant Police Department during this time and we respect the decision of the town of Mt. Pleasant to meter traffic into the terminal until they can assure we are back at regular operations. Trucks are now returning on a regular basis to the terminal and being processed in the system.
(3) We will remain open tonight until 9 pm as of now. One issue is that truckers have hours of service limitations and in many cases they normally work from 6 am to 6 pm and are 'timed out' after that. We are coordinating with the truckers who have company trucks to see if we can manage around the hours of service, especially with regard to the container rail moves.
(4) We are currently programmed for 6 am to 6 pm gate hours tomorrow but will review that later today. Saturday, we will be open from 6 am to 4 pm and we will need to make a call on Sunday. Hours of service restrictions also come into play there as truckers have a 34 hour restart every week which they normally can cover by not working Sunday.
(5) As of this writing, trucks are returning to our terminal and we are hoping for a productive four hours to end the day and a good start tomorrow morning.