On Wall Street and in Washington, where the crisis is more palpable, comparisons with the Great Depression are frequent. In interviews here, however, that association was never made. Even those squeezed the most said they expect this recession to be no worse, or not much worse, than others since World War II  ending in six months, by Mr. Cook’s estimate; by late next year, according to others; or, by still others, 18 months at the longest.

Image A warehouse in the Northport Industrial Park in Pooler, Ga., outside Savannah. Developers put up warehouse and distribution centers on speculation. Credit... Stephen Morton for The New York Times

“The belief in an early rebound is real,” said Michael Toma, an economist at Armstrong Atlantic State University here. “The history of our economy in Savannah has been slow, steady growth since 1990, and we are conditioned to believe this will resume.”

STATELY antebellum mansions and Victorian homes, many of them newly renovated, fan out from the river here, clustering near rectangular plazas originally laid out in 1734. Savannah is proud of that heritage, and locals are determined to try to ensure that any economic malaise be short-lived.

No one has a greater stake in keeping the recession mild than Doug J. Marchand, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, which operates the port here, a mile upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. It is now the fifth-largest port on the East Coast, as measured by cargo tons; most cargo is shipped in huge steel containers.

But the tonnage in those containers, rising at an annual rate of 10 percent or more annually through most of the last 20 years, has lately “flattened,” as Mr. Marchand put it, to almost no rise at all  the first time that has happened in his 13 years as port director.

That unanticipated slowdown caught Savannah off guard. The city has four million square feet of newly built, never-occupied warehouse space, intended primarily as temporary quarters for the growing flow of imports. Big as hangars, these buildings sit shuttered and alone in industrial parks sprouting weeds.

Mr. Marchand helped ignite the building boom. In a 2004 “call to action,” a speech that business and government officials still cite here, he declared that Savannah needed to make room for a vast new crop of warehouses to accommodate the cargo surge.