Australia’s busiest highway, the Pacific Highway, has been cut off by flood waters from the record-breaking rainfall in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales, leaving hundreds of trucks stranded and supermarket supply chains ruptured.
Hundreds of vehicles remained stranded on Tuesday afternoon, with the Pacific Motorway cut off in several places between Ballina and Tweed Heads since Monday morning. The adjoining Pacific Highway was also closed north of Grafton.
Supermarket bosses say there may be shortages of some goods because of the disruption.
Woolworths has introduced two-pack purchase limits on several categories in affected regions, including fresh milk, meat and medicine, and one-pack limits on toilet paper and still water.
Some drivers said they had been stuck on the M1 since 7.30am on Monday.
Danny Baldwin, the Woolworths general manager for Queensland, said “the loss of key transport links because of flooding will regrettably have an impact on product availability in different parts of Queensland”.
Many stores in the worst affected regions have been unable to open their doors. Both Coles and Woolworth have been forced to close or reduce opening hours.
Woolworths said a freight train derailment at Traveston near Gympie had compounded the supply challenge.
Coles said they were rerouting deliveries impacted by road and rail closures to ensure they can maintain essential groceries over the coming days.
Warren Clark, the chief executive of the National Roads Transport Association, said truck drivers will remain stranded until flood waters recede and all local freight around the affected areas had stopped.
Clarke said the only practical route to get north to Brisbane was the inland New England Highway but even that could be impacted by flooding around Newcastle.
He said the road closures meant drivers were unable to get products into supermarkets, pharmacies and other stores.
Warren Elvery, the chair of NSW Farmers Lismore Branch, said his nearest Coles supermarket at Alstonville is out of bread and low on fruit, vegetables and milk.
Robert Quirk, a sugar cane farmer, said he watched as flood waters rose over the M1 highway on Monday evening near his farm south of Tweed Heads.
He said the highway was built on part of his farm to withstand a one in 100-year flood “plus 30cm” and yet the water covered the road in parts.
Quirk said he was concerned about the blockages on the highway and the reliance by the major supermarkets on road haulage.
“If people go panic buying, there won’t be much to buy in a few days – it’s a bit scary actually,” he says.
Long-term challenge
Stephen Bartos is the principal author behind the 2012 resilience in the Australian food supply chain report, which came after the Queensland floods in late 2010 through to January 2011.
The report found while the food chain was reasonably resilient when one natural disaster strikes, it remained “highly vulnerable to the combined effects of more than one disaster”.
Bartos said since 2012 connections through to north Queensland were better but the state’s south remained very vulnerable to being cut off because it was built on a flood plain.
Bartos, the lead author of a forthcoming report for Farmers for Climate Action, said the key to reducing the threat of natural disasters on supply chains was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But he said there were other policy responses that could alsomake the supply chain more resilient.
“We need more duplication of supply lines like rail lines and roads, and we need to consider shorter supply chains and more local sources,” Bartos said.
Bartos said if food has to travel a long way the chance of it being cut off at some point was higher, while communities who have local sources of food are much more resilient.