'There's no room for error': The humble tugboat's crucial role in easing a global crisis
LOS ANGELES — The sea is calm tonight. The breeze is light. An easy swell rolls beneath the Delta Teresa, a tugboat idling at the entrance to Long Beach Harbor.
In the darkness where sky and water meet, nearly three dozen tankers and containers ships ride at anchor. Lights outline their skeletal shapes. Sunrise is two hours away, but clouds have lowered the sky. Rain is in the forecast.
Capt. Mike Johnson looks at the monitor to his left and sees a green shape, the Marjorie C, making its approach from San Diego. With a touch on an iPad, he starts the tugboat's twin diesels. Deckhand Max Cota and engineer Charlie May wait with him in the warmth of the wheelhouse. Jessica Huber, who also works the decks, has the day off.
Seven days on, seven days off, the Teresa's crew members have had a front-row seat to a world economy thrown off balance by the pandemic: ships anchored offshore, containers waiting to be offloaded, so much stuff without a home.
Their work is but one link out of hundreds in the global supply chain: Each link is dependent upon all the others for the success of the whole.
