The flood waters continue to devastate in Queensland and northern New South Wales, I thought we should reflect on some unknown factors that a lot of people don't think about.
As some of you may know my family, along with myself and Mr M, runs a produce packing, growing and transport business. My role in the business is mainly dealing with the transport and the every day running of three interstate trucks (two B-doubles to Brisbane and one semi to Sydney). One of our trucks along with my brother who also runs an interstate trucking business have been stuck in northern NSW at the border for the past two days. Today my brother Kelly, our driver Darren, his 6 year old son who is with him and two other drivers from another company have chosen to leave their trucks where they are and hire a car to drive south to their homes back here in Victoria.
As my brother and our truck approached Queensland many people were asking me why they don't just turn around, why are they still headed for Brisbane into the floods? Well if you have 35 tonnes of goods on board that needs to get somewhere you seem to be in a bit of a predicament. In my brothers case he has paper on board, bound for Brisbane, he can't exactly turn around and deliver it somewhere else. This is only two trucks I'm talking about, imagine the magnitude of trucks sitting just outside the flood zone waiting to know if they should go in and deliver, sit and wait or take another course of action.
I want people to be aware that it is not only the Brisbane transport industry which is going to be thrown into chaos, the flow-on effect along the east coast is going to be massive. I was on the phone to people in the Sydney fresh produce markets yesterday who had truck after truck after truck arriving to deliver produce which was bound for Brisbane. Quite the predicament.
My thoughts are with those in rural communities who don't have the resources available to them for food, water or shelter. Please think of the farming families who have lost their livelihoods.
5 comments:
you make a very good point. It's just so very sad.
The ripple effect of this disaster is enormous and the full extent won't be known for some time. I really hope your business recovers quickly as does all the other businesses caught up in it.
Well said Emma! From a farming family who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in this year's wheat crop harvest due to excessive rain and who are currently rained into their property! Thankfully we have enough groceries to see us through the next week or so! Still nothing like the loss experienced further north but rain and flooding are definitely having a horrible impact on those in the southern areas too.
Hi Emma. Such a thought provoking blog post for many to think about. We are situated on a large grain farm 32km from Goondiwindi and 18km from Yelarbon. Last night we were told stories of our local pub in Yelarbon feeding, housing, showering and watering over 30 truck drivers who are isolated - all while we are all on flood alert, and suffering from limited food supplies.
Many of these truck drivers had families sitting in the floods in Brisbane, or had stock that HAD to be delivered to Brisbane regardless of the floods.
The roads are now opened (apparently) as the mail from Goondiwindi is now on it's way to Brisbane. I do hope that your family and friends who are in the transport business can experience better conditions for you.
Along with the floods that are predicted to peak, we also lost our wheat crop due to heavy rains and have had our sorghum crop drowned with minimum potential. Due to it's performance, it may be sprayed out as it's not worth harvesting. It's all devastating.
Thank you for sparing a thought for the rural communities. Should the township of Goondiwindi flood tonight - then we may be isolated for days and maybe weeks.
X
Same, same with my bro and sister in law in Victoria. This years wheat, canola, etc harvest got turned to cattle grade because of the rain. Weren't able to harvest it until xmas, so we didn't get to see them for Christmas Day (they were meant to spend this year in Qld) so they postponed to January....we're in Gympie, and it's flooded, so won't get to see them until Easter, we hope!
Gympie had the main highway, north and south cut since Sunday to today. 5 days the trucks sat on high ground. Then today they opened and the police gave the convoy of hundreds of trucks first priority to the roads. Our shops were bare of food, so police convoyed in supermarket supply trucks via a washed out horrible back road yesterday before highways were open.
Will be such a flow on, for loads of people. It will take a while to get back on track.
Cleanup begins here. I went back to work today over one of the bridges that just opened up this morning, going down fast. 16 metres this morning to 13 metres tonight. Still has to get down to 9 metres before the next bridge is opened though (2 bridges divide the town).
Brisbane has been hit hard. Flood food markets in Brisbane Rocklea will have a flow on effect for Queensland and NSW. Dairy farmers in our region waiting to get milk out, had 2 days worth of supply tipped out the other day. There will be issues with everything you could possibly think of (perhaps slight exaggeration) -- Stock feed supplies -- to supply and demand for many food processing factories.
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