"Sense of urgency" at port as backlogs mount at international gateway terminal. The Port of Virginia is in its sixth day of dealing with a mounting and near-unprecedented congestion crisis at one of its terminals, The blockage was triggered by the dual effects of heavy containerized volumes and bad weather that hit the mid-Atlantic region last month. The problem centers on the Virginia International Gateway (VIG), where cargo is arriving and departing with no letup, and will likely continue to do so through Friday. In an effort to relieve overcrowding in the terminal, the port last weekend began using barges in a drayage capacity to reposition containers between VIG, the Portsmouth Marine Terminal and Norfolk International Terminals (NIT). Road drayage vehicles are being kept away from VIG’s gates as much as possible, said Joe Harris, a port spokesman. The port said in an update yesterday that it has asked logistics and dray companies, as well as beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) that have containers at NIT, to direct truckers there if possible. The port is moving containers scheduled to ship via rail to a large open area near the docks to keep those boxes separate from equipment set to move by truck, according to Harris. It is also grounding selected containers outside the container stacks that are maintained by rail-mounted gantry cranes, a move aimed at reducing the stacks’ density and allowing truckers and dockworkers to do their jobs more efficiently. The port added that it was "optimizing" vessel arrivals at VIG to control inventory and better balance demand with available resources. It will keep Saturday gate hours at VIG, Norfolk and the Pinners Point Container Yard through June 27. It will keep Sunday gate hours at VIG and Pinners Point through at least April 26. The need to extend […]