Wednesday, December 15, 2021
On March 23, 2021, the container ship Ever Given wedged across the Suez Canal, halting billions in daily trade and exposing how fragile global supply chains are.
On this day in 2021, the container ship Ever Given ran aground and turned sideways in the Suez Canal, wedging itself across one of the busiest trade routes on earth. For six days nothing moved, and hundreds of ships carrying everything from fuel to furniture backed up at both ends while the world watched a single stuck vessel hold up billions of dollars a day.
The blockage was a small accident with an enormous reach. Modern supply chains are built to be lean, with goods arriving just in time rather than sitting in warehouses, which is efficient right up until one link jams. A week-long delay at a chokepoint rippled into shortages and price jumps months later and far away.
The lesson is the same one preppers draw from every shortage. When the system that delivers goods is this tightly wound, a household reserve is simple insurance, and treating any single man made disaster as a possible supply shock is just good sense.
