LOS ANGELES — Ports on both coasts are still digging out from the crush of cargo that continues to pile up four months after the shutdown of U.S. West Coast ports.

Truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach are reporting waiting times as long as eight hours at some container facilities.

Los Angeles-Long Beach, the nation's largest port complex, is by far the most congested harbor in the U.S. "I've never, in my 20-year career, seen anything so bad," said Robert Sturdevant, vice president of World Commerce Service Inc.-California, a customs broker and consolidator in Long Beach.

So bad, in fact, that some harbor truck drivers, most of whom are independent contractors, are refusing to pick up loads in L.A. even if they are offered large bonuses, Sturdevant said.

Terminal operators agree that the re-opening of the ports on Oct. 10 following the lock-out of union longshoremen by management unleashed a flood of cargo that most facilities were not prepared to handle. "We've been running weekend gates every week except for Christmas, but it's still not a normal situation," said Phillip Wright, vice president of West Coast operations for Zim-American-Israeli Shipping Co.

Farther up the coast, Oakland and Seattle are scrambling to clear the cargo backlog. Waiting times can reach several hours, said Dan Gatchet, president of West Coast Trucking in Seattle, but he added that the Pacific Northwest ports are working their way back to the customary one-hour turn time.

Some terminals have fared better than others. APL spokesman Jerry Drelling said its Los Angeles terminal was commended by the California Trucking Association in mid-December for maintaining a fluid operation. Truckers say some terminals in Southern California have kept waits down to less than an hour by opening more gates and keeping them open longer.

Executives say shipping lines compounded the problems during the shutdown by refusing to accept intermodal rail bookings in Asia, stranding shipments destined for interior U.S. points. "They dumped the cargo here without a clue as to where to send it," , said Doug Tilden, president of Marine Terminals Corp.

The congestion spread when large importers and retailers flooded East Coast ports with diverted shipments from Asia. On Dec. 19 the Port of Savannah recorded a record 4,395 gate moves, said spokesman Robert Morris, and the Port of New York and New Jersey quickly found itself short of labor, trucks and chassis. The New York Shipping Association, with the support of terminal operators and trucking companies in December petitioned the Waterfront Commission for permission to add 400 longshore workers.

"We feel confident this will happen," said Dick Jones, executive director of the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers, who noted that extended gate hours at terminals have helped cut wait times. "We're well on our way to digging out," Jones said.

A domino effect has effectively kept ports clogged with containers. The port shutdown played havoc with trans-Pacific vessel rotations in October and November. In order to catch up, shipping lines began skipping port calls, flooding some West Coast ports with more cargo than the terminals were equipped to handle. Terminals became inundated with empty containers as shipping lines, rushing to keep vessels moving, in many cases didn't allow enough time to reload their vessels with boxes returning to Asia.

Terminals were forced to stack containers in locations that were considered unsafe for trucks. Longshoremen had to move the containers prior to loading as drivers waited for hours once they got inside terminals.

West Coast terminals work efficiently only when they can store imported containers on chassis. Since October, most terminals have been unable to wheel their imports, causing even more delays for truckers.

Frustrated by long lines that limited them to one round-trip per day, many drivers chose not to work during the holidays. "It has been extremely difficult to get drivers to work," said Patty Senecal, vice president of sales at Transport Express in Rancho Dominguez, Calif.

Importers have been hit with large demurrage fees because they couldn't get enough truck drivers to call at the ports, or because drivers couldn't make enough trips in a day. "In the last six weeks, I've paid more demurrage than in the entire 20 years I've been in this industry," said Sturdevant, the Long Beach consolidator.

Terminal operators are looking forward to Feb. 1, the Chinese New Year, when factories in Asia close for two weeks. That should give them enough time to clear the docks and return to normal operations, operators said.

By Bill Mongelluzzo