The Port of Savannah moved 5,669,948 TEUs in fiscal 2026, a record 4.22 million of them loaded, according to the Georgia Ports Authority’s FY26 container trade report. Rail carried about 17% of Savannah’s container trade through Mason Mega Rail, Railway Age reports. Most of the rest moves by truck. So for most importers the first move after the gate is a dray, the short truck move that takes a container from the terminal to a warehouse. In Savannah, the dray decides whether the rest of your inland lane works.
Our building at 195 Nordic Way in Pooler sits seven miles from the Port of Savannah, about 15 minutes from Garden City Terminal. Below is what happens between the time your container is discharged and the time a dry van leaves our dock for Atlanta, Charlotte or wherever the product is going. We coordinate the drayage. We don’t run the trucks. The drivers who hit our docks are carriers we line up for you.
The mistake we see most from importers new to Savannah is treating the dray and the inland move as one trip. One truck runs the container straight from the terminal to a distribution center several states away. Split it into two jobs with two different truck types and the math changes.
| Long haul straight from the terminal | Dray to Pooler, then a dry van inland | |
|---|---|---|
| The truck at the terminal | A driver with a chassis who will run the box several states | A drayage carrier running seven miles each way |
| The empty container | Returned to the port from wherever it was unloaded | Returned from Pooler, seven miles from the port |
| What rides inland | The container as it was packed overseas | A dry van loaded to the trailer, not to the box |
| Count and inspection | At the destination, after the long haul | On our floor, before anything moves inland |
| Duty | Paid at entry | Paid at entry, or deferred in the customs-bonded area if your broker files a warehouse entry |
| If plans change | The box is already on the road | Store it, split it, or ship it LTL or truckload from Pooler |
Once the ship is worked, your container sits at Garden City Terminal and the demurrage clock runs against the carrier’s free time. Once it gates out, a second clock starts: detention, or per diem, on the carrier’s equipment until the empty is returned. Neither clock cares whether your customs entry cleared, whether a chassis is available, or whether your inland carrier has a truck in Savannah that week. The Federal Maritime Commission’s 2020 interpretive rule on demurrage and detention sets out how it judges whether those charges are reasonable. Better to never run up the charge in the first place. A warehouse seven miles from the terminal lets you get the box off the terminal before demurrage starts and the empty back before per diem does, then sort everything else out on your own floor.
A drayage carrier pulls the container on a chassis from Garden City Terminal to our dock. That’s seven miles, about 15 minutes in normal traffic. The building is three minutes from I-95 and five from I-16. We coordinate the carrier and the appointment, and we receive the container against that appointment. The building has 28 dock doors and 50 trailer spots.
Every one of those drivers goes through the terminal’s credentialing and traffic procedures before they get to us. The Georgia Ports Authority’s own orientation video shows what that looks like from the cab:
Because we coordinate rather than operate the trucks, you aren’t tied to a single carrier’s capacity. When a carrier is short on chassis or drivers, we can move the appointment to another one. That matters most the week your vessel lands with everyone else’s. More on how we run it on our Savannah transloading and drayage page.
The container is unloaded onto the floor, counted and inspected. Floor-loaded cartons get palletized, palletized freight is checked against the packing list, and damaged or short product gets photographed and documented before anything leaves the building. If the product needs it, this is where relabeling, lot and batch marking or GHS hazard labels go on, and where samples get pulled for customers who want one before release.
The building is 230,400 square feet, built in 2016, with 30-foot clear height and ESFR sprinklers. It’s ambient and heated storage only, with no conditioned, refrigerated or frozen rooms in Pooler. We say that up front because it decides which products belong here and which belong in Atlanta.
If your broker enters the freight under a warehouse entry instead of paying duty at entry, it goes into the customs-bonded area of the building, live since June 2026. Know how it works before your first container lands. Porter is the bonded-warehouse proprietor, you (or your principal) are the importer of record, and bonded goods leave the bonded area only against CBP-authorized documents. Nothing moves on a phone call. For an importer, that means duty is deferred until the product is withdrawn for consumption. What happens on re-export is a question for your broker. We are not customs brokers. Your broker handles the entry and we handle the building. If bonded storage is new to you, start with why a bonded warehouse in Savannah belongs in your tariff strategy and our comparison of bonded warehouses and FTZs, then the customs-bonded warehouse in Savannah page.
Pooler is permitted for hazmat classes 8 and 9, and we handle the IMDG, IMO and IATA documentation when product goes back out for export. Classes 2 through 6 and flammables in H3 rooms live in Atlanta. If that’s your product, the dray works the same way but the inland leg takes it to Selig Drive. The specifics are on our hazmat and chemical warehousing in Savannah page, and chemical logistics in Savannah: what shippers need to know covers the rest. On food-grade product, the Pooler building is FDA registered, holds a Georgia Department of Agriculture food sales license, runs cGMP and HACCP programs, is AIB International certified, and is a USDA Organic certified handler. Bulk liquids come in by ISO tank, tank wagon or IBC, and we repackage them into IBCs, drums and pails on site through chemical repackaging in Savannah.
The Savannah play is consolidation. Containers get consolidated in Savannah into dry vans for the inland leg. Freight that would have run inland as several separate container moves rides in fewer trailers when it cubes out, loaded to the trailer and not to the box, and the empties go back to a port seven miles away instead of several hundred. Atlanta is 3.5 hours by truck. Moves between our Pooler and Atlanta buildings run 10 to 15 times a day, so product that needs cold storage, an H3 room or a rail connection in Atlanta rides a lane that is already running. If the freight only needs to change trucks, cross-docking in Savannah keeps it moving the same day.
For product that stays in Savannah, the same floor becomes import warehousing in Savannah: store it, pick it, ship it LTL or truckload as orders come in. The container is just how it arrived. If you’re comparing two warehouses at different distances from the port, we worked the drayage math in the best global logistics companies in Savannah do these 5 things.
| Who | Their job between the vessel and the inland trailer |
|---|---|
| You, the importer | Commercial documents, product requirements, and where the product ends up |
| Your customs broker | The entry (or the warehouse entry for bonded storage) and the CBP release documents |
| The drayage carrier | Pulls the container on a chassis from Garden City Terminal and returns the empty |
| Porter | Coordinates the carrier and the appointment; receives, devans, counts and stores; acts as bonded-warehouse proprietor for bonded goods; consolidates and coordinates the LTL, truckload or flatbed move inland |
Three things, every time. First, chassis. Nobody owns one, so nobody plans for one, and the dray gets booked before anyone checks availability. Second, free time. The terminal clock and the equipment clock are different, and the second one is where the surprise invoice comes from. Third, bonded release. Importers assume the warehouse can release bonded goods because they asked nicely. It can’t. The entry has to clear and the paperwork has to be in the warehouse’s hands. None of that is complicated, but all of it has to be decided before discharge, and twice over in peak. Our Savannah peak-season guide covers the timing. If you are weighing Savannah against other ports for the first time, shifting port networks and warehousing to Savannah is the background read.
Our building at 195 Nordic Way in Pooler is seven miles from the Port of Savannah and about 15 minutes from Garden City Terminal, three minutes from I-95 and five minutes from I-16. The building details are on the Savannah warehouse location page.
Yes. We coordinate drayage from the Port of Savannah to Pooler, along with LTL, truckload and flatbed moves. We don’t run our own trucks. The drivers who hit our docks are carriers we coordinate on your behalf.
Yes. The building has a customs-bonded area, live since June 2026. Porter is the bonded-warehouse proprietor, the customer or its principal is the importer of record, and bonded goods are released only against CBP-authorized documents.
Yes. Containers are devanned in Pooler and the freight is consolidated into dry vans for the inland leg. Atlanta is about 3.5 hours by truck, and moves between our Pooler and Atlanta buildings run 10 to 15 times a day.
If you have a container landing in Savannah and no plan for the seven miles after the gate, send us the vessel date, the commodity and where the product ends up. We’ll tell you whether it fits and what the dray, devan and inland leg look like from our dock. Start with our Savannah transload and drayage services.
