This will be much more long term than prior years. I've been in this for about 11/12 years and have seen 2 droughts in scrap. In other instances it has been a microeconomic issue. This time it's macro. I believe it will be at least a year but probably closer to 2 years before we see steel come back.
Generally the coast lines ship their material overseas. Since the global market as a whole is not buying much, that means the coast scrap companies ship their material inland which basically floods the US Mills. On top of the fact that the US mills order books are not strong, they can now pay what they want for scrap because there is an abundance of supply.