© 2024 WLRN
MIAMI | SOUTH FLORIDA
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Bigger Ships Are Coming to Port Everglades. Here’s What That Means for South Florida.

Joe Cavaretta
/
South Florida Sun Sentinel
The Cardiff, an 889-foot container ship, is offloaded at Port Everglades. Newer generations of larger cargo ships began coming to Port Everglades several years ago from Europe and South America, prior to the Panama Canal Expansion.

Bananas. Tiles. Shoes. They come by the shipload now to Port Everglades to stock shelves mostly across the state and some even beyond.

Each ship could carry more than 10,000 to 12,000 cargo containers — up from 6,000 to 8,000 — under a recently approved expansion project. “Ships are getting bigger,” said Ellen Kennedy, port spokeswoman. “Why would you have two ships when you can do the job with one?”

Congress this week approved the first batch of money — $29.1 million — to widen a section of the Intracoastal Waterway by 250 feet. The work will be done by late 2023. That would allow the cargo ships to maneuver around cruise ships docked at the port — one of the top three cruise ports in the world.

 

Read more at the Sun Sentinel.

More On This Topic