According to the American Freighter website, before the epidemic, the Port of Long Beach in Los Angeles, California had an average of 16 ships waiting for unloading throughout the day. On August 29, there were 76 container ships waiting for unloading at the port, which was 4.8 times the number before the epidemic. 

On that day, there were 47 cargo ships waiting to be unloaded at the same time, setting a record high. The original record was 40 ships on February 1 this year. This record was broken several times last week, with 44 ships on Friday, August 27 and 46 ships on Monday, August 23.

However, the real bad news is that with the arrival of the pre-holiday peak season, the already overwhelmed port system will face a higher volume of arrivals next month. More freight shipments will be cancelled, and importers will face longer delays and fewer container vacancies. Experts estimate that this year, US ports are unlikely to return to their previous berths.

The WAVE report of the Port of Los Angeles Beaches estimated future arrivals and predicted that the number will increase in the coming weeks. It forecasts that the import volume in the last week of September will exceed 120,000 TEUs, which is a 34% increase from the nearly 90,000 TEUs expected to arrive in the first week of September.

Although the import volume in the first eight months of this year hit a new high, the speed of retail sales still exceeded the speed of inventory replenishment. The increase in demand and sales has far exceeded the increase in inventory, precisely explaining the reason for the influx of container ships into American ports and the unprecedented number of berths.