In Los Angeles, traffic just keeps backing up, not on the highway, in the ocean.

So to put this in the proper context, we have 52 container vessels waiting in the harbor

to get into the port, whether it's the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles.

So in normal times, there is zero.

So that's how bad the crisis is.

Mario Codero, the executive director for the Port of Long Beach, spoke to NPR this past

week.

Here's the word crisis, because those two ports, Long Beach and LA, represent about 40%

of shipping containers that come into the US.

An unlike comparable ports, say, in China, they don't normally operate around the clock.

So when you talk about the epicenter of manufacturing of the world, China, that blue bed is 24-7,

including their ports, the international carriers are 24-7.

So what happens when the United States, we're not.

So part of the problem is the delays that happen when we have this kind of volume.

Volume meaning higher consumer demand, colliding with staffing shortages and supply chain

bottlenecks all caused by the pandemic.

It's why last week, the White House announced it would help move LA's port into 24-7 operating

status.

You can think of that as basically opening the gates.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke to NPR after the announcement.

Next we got to make sure that we have all of the other players going through those gates,

getting the containers off of the ship so that there's more of the next ship, getting

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