It only takes one: How a single shipping container could cripple the world’s economy

The Port of Charleston, South Carolina is the 9th largest container port in the United States, handling close to 160 thousand containers annually. So, what could get authorities to shut down this cog in our nation’s commerce for seven hours? The short answer is, a prank call and a dirty bomb. On the night of June 14, 2017, the Charleston Coast Guard received a warning about a possible dirty bomb on the container ship Maersk Memphis. This resulted in authorities shutting down the port for seven hours in order for four containers to be pulled off the ship and scanned for signs of hazardous radiological material. Normal operations resumed at 3:30 am after the containers had been cleared. It was later discovered that the warning call had in fact been a prank by a conspiracy theorist, who had live streamed the entire event on YouTube.

Island of Hawaii in a state of emergency following eruption of Kilauea volcano

On Thursday, Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupted, following around 600 small earthquakes that shook the region since Monday. The largest, a 5.0-magnitude quake, occurred just a few hours before Kilauea’s eruption. The volcano did not erupt from its summit, but rather from cracks located several miles to the east in the residential community of Leilani Estates. Residents of Leilani Estates – along with the Lanipuna Gardens subdivision – were issued mandatory evacuation orders by Hawaii County Thursday evening, shortly after the eruption was reported. Currently, around 1,700 residents of the affected communities are under mandatory evacuation, though locals fear there could be thousands more impacted.