The Port of Los Angeles has long been the single busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere, employing thousands of Southern Californians and playing a critical role in the vast supply chain that underpins both the California economy and that of the United States as a whole. Together with neighboring Port of Long Beach in the San Pedro Bay, it handles a whopping 40% of all the container traffic from continental Asia.
Unbeknownst to us, they had deals with shipping lines to make sure that they could hold their containers here at the port for little to no charge. Once we diagnosed that by doing some data mining through our own system, the Port Optimizer, we were able to start moving cargo again. No one was trying to hurt us, nothing sinister was taking place. The American consumer was simply buying at a pace that we've never witnessed.