Vital supplies flooding in
MORE than 5500 tonnes of food and groceries will arrive in Cairns today to replenish supermarket shelves stripped bare after days of flooding.
A convoy of more than 100 semi-trailers carrying more than 4000 tonnes of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and other goods headed north to Cairns late yesterday after the Bruce Highway at Ingham was finally reopened.
The first of the trucks were due to arrive late last night, with supermarket staff working overtime to unload the semis and get the food on shelves before stores opened this morning.
The mass shipment comes after major flooding near Ingham cut road and rail links north.
Only emergency supplies shipped in by sea or air have made it to Cairns in the past eight days.
Stock levels at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets in the Far North have been running between 20 and 50 per cent.
Woolworths Queensland regional manager Tony Condon said he was relieved the trucks had made it through and stores would be restocked.
"We’ve had a lot of trucks stranded there for the past eight days. It’s been a very costly exercise, " he said, adding the costs would not be passed on to customers.
About 1500 tonnes of supplies are due on a barge and two chartered aircraft are also due to arrive in the city today.
The MV Newcastle Bay, a Sea Swift vessel, was scheduled to dock early this morning.
On board are five containers of mail, five containers of milk, one container of bread and 30 refrigerated containers of perishables including fruit, vegetables and meat.
Yesterday, the vessel delivered 40 shipping containers of bananas from Cairns to Townsville.
Also yesterday, Coles used a chartered plane to carry 32 tonnes of food to Cairns.
"Our logistics team who has been working with us for 20 years, have never seen anything like this," Coles spokesperson Jim Cooper said.
"We are doing what we can to get these bare essentials up there."
Cornetts IGA area manager Denzil Bignoux said his stores, which last got fresh supplies 12 days ago, would today start receiving 240 tonnes of food by road and sea.
"We’re short on some fruit, but we’ve run out of long-life milk, sugar, flour and canned food. By Friday we should be trading up to a capacity of 80 per cent," he said.
A spokesman for Main Roads Minister Warren Pitt said priority was given to heavy vehicles for several hours in order to move freight.
Police said many road surfaces were suffering from the deluge and pot holes and road deterioration was expected.
The Far North will not get too much relief from the wet weather as storms are predicted for later in the week.
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Stripped bare: The problem of empty shelves such as this scene yesterday at Cairns Woolworths in Abbott St should be relieved by fresh supplies today.
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