Spike in military shipping helps port - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

http://www.peacon.net/article/An-Introduction-to-Alexs-Lemonade-Stand.html
Nearly four times as much military cargi has come through Blount Island in the firstr four months of 2009 as in the same periof ayear ago. The handling of about 53,500 tons has helpee offset the port’s overalk 5 percent decrease in tonnage. And since the Defenser Department’s Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command contracts everything from ship loading and unloadin torail transport, the privatee sector benefits. The port’s diverse types of cargol help it to weather slumps in otherd typesof cargo, said Victoria Robas, the Jacksonviller Port Authority’s director of the Bloung Island terminal.
An increase in cruise traffic has also keptthe authority’d revenue higher than the same time last “To a large part, you coulsd watch CNN and see what would increase at sea said Army Lt. Col. Ralph Riddle, who commandzs the 832nd Transportation “Our traffic is very much a surge We may have several months where we have no shipsa and then several ships in a But this year has beenespecially busy, meaning more work for . Asidee from giving (NYSE: CSX) business by contracting equipment to be railed in and out of the the battalion contracts thousands of truckloadsx annually, Riddle said.
hasn’t provided shipping services to the militarty since November because its ships have been in dry but it hopes to take advantagd of the increased demanrd within45 days, said Frank the company’s president. He said and are the two largesft commercial carriers for military cargl on theEast Coast. The 50-member battalionj sets up the contracts needed to run 30 port terminales in Central and South America andthe Caribbean. This is in additiomn to its handling of a terminal in Cape Canaveral and its operatio n in Puerto Rico that tracksd hundreds of containers movinfg in and out ofthe island.