Sask. Trucking Association looking at alternative routes amid B.C. highway disasters

Flooding and mudslides in B.C. could have an impact on people in Saskatchewan.

That’s according to Susan Ewart with the Saskatchewan Trucking Association.

“We’re definitely going to see impacts on the supply chain. Things might be delayed,” Ewart said Wednesday. “Some of our members have said this is the biggest challenge our industry has ever faced.”

Ewart says over half a billion dollars a day in product is “sitting over there” with nowhere for it to go.

Highway cams in the coastal province show some roads completely submerged, while media reports show some roads destroyed entirely.

Ewart says the trucking association has been working closely with B.C.’s association to figure out alternative routes in order to get products where they need to go.

“Our friends at the British Columbia Trucking Association have been keeping us updated, and have been working with local Canada Border Protection and Canadian Border Services agencies to look at alternate routes, possibly down through the U.S. to move goods,” she said. “The situation is fluid and moving quickly.

“We are getting updates as quickly as we can.”

Reports from B.C. show shelves at some grocery stores stripped bare due to a lack of products getting to their destinations.

Ewart hopes those issues will get figured out sooner rather than later.

“The trucking industry is an essential service to our economy,” she said. “When these types of things happen, you need to work together with governments and carriers and associations to figure out how we can keep moving.”