Field notes
A typhoon-season checklist for port activity memos
Before we open a chart for a typhoon-related memo, we record the official signal timeline, the hours terminals remained closed, and the first post-reopening call that cleared immigration and berthing formalities.
Clients often want a single “days lost” figure. We resist inventing one. Instead we show displaced calls against the prior four-week baseline and flag cargo types that typically recover faster — empties versus refrigerated loads, for example.
Barge and mid-stream activity deserves its own paragraph. After strong signals, water-side movements often resume earlier than landside trucking; mixing them into one congestion story confuses inland partners.
Keep customer-facing language calm. Operations teams already know the weather was severe; they need a credible sequence of what moved, what waited, and what still needs a revised ETA conversation.