Florida Ports Weather the Storm

By Jock O’Connell

Nature has not been kind to Florida’s ports. As we noted a few years back,  these ports along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts lose many more days of productivity each year to Port Condition Zulu winds than nearly any other North American ports.  This autumn has been no exception.

PMSA tracks three Florida ports, all on the Atlantic side. They are Port Miami, JaxPort, and Port Everglades. Florida also boasts three Gulf Coast ports (Port of Panama City, Port Manatee, and Port Tampa) that handle appreciable levels of container traffic. Regrettably, they do not publicize their monthly TEU numbers.

U.S. Commerce Department statistics show that Florida’s ports handled $63.323 billion of containerized shipments or approximately five percent of the nation’s entire containerized trade in 2023. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers latest waterborne trade data (2022) indicates that Florida ports handled 1,430,258 loaded import TEUs and 882,417 export loads. The Sunshine State’s three major ports on the Atlantic Coast handled 87.8% of all international container traffic through the state.