It’s been a record breaking year in Georgia so far, and mostly not in a great way. The state has seen record high gas prices, inflation, and murder rates (in Atlanta), and now is potentially staring down a record hot summer.
But better news is coming from the Port of Savannah, which moved a record 519,390 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) in May, its highest monthly total ever reported.
According to the Georgia Ports Authority, the total broke the previous record, set in October, and was more than 8 percent higher than last May.
GPA executive director Griff Lynch pointed to heightened demand and recent infrastructure upgrades as reason for the increased traffic.
“Strong consumer demand continues to drive higher volumes at the Port of Savannah,” Lynch said. “The infrastructure improvements and pop-up yards approved by the GPA board have enabled our operations to maintain the flow of cargo across our terminal, despite unprecedented container volumes passing through the port.”
The Port of Savannah is currently the fourth busiest container port in the United States, behind Los Angeles, Long Beach, and New York and New Jersey. But it is growing much more quickly than its peers, rising from 4.6M TEUs in 2020 to an estimated 7M this year.
And with continued development at the Garden City Terminal, a recently-completed harbor deepening project, and ever-increasing demand from Central and South America, expect more records to be broken at the South’s busiest port.
