High winds and flooding as hurricane Ian hits Florida

Besides posing immediate danger to the population, Ian also poses risk to the manufacturing and distribution sectors in the state. The potential economic ripple effects from the storm are however to soon to speculate in.

Everstream Analytics, a company that via software solutions attempts to predict supply chain issues and recommend fixes, said in a weather update Tuesday that Ian could impact as many as 2,800 manufacturing firms in aerospace, automotive components, heavy machinery, chemicals and plastics.

Supply chain market intelligence firm, FreightWaves, says that at the same time as hurricane Ian sweeps across Florida, typhoon Noru is upsetting supply chains in Southeast Asia as it moves across the South China Sea toward Vietnam.

Resilinc, a company mapping supply chains and providing early warnings of disruptions, told FreightWaves that than 4,500 factories, warehouses and distribution centers – producing and distributing everything from electronics to chemicals – are in Ian’s projected storm zone.

In preparation for Hurricane Ian, Jabil closed all buildings on its St. Petersburg campus on Monday, September 26. Safety is our number one priority and closing our offices and manufacturing facilities allowed our employees to focus on keeping themselves and their families safe. Now that the storm has passed the Tampa Bay area and we’ve conducted damage assessments, our campus will be reopening on Monday, October 3, Jabil said in an emailed statement to Evertiq.

Evertiq has reached out to several manufacturers in Florida for a status update.