The freight industry is warning there may be delays in moving goods around the country due to the flooding closures of multiple roads in New South Wales and Victoria.
About 150 kilometres of the Sturt Highway between Sydney and Adelaide is closed due to flooding of the Murrumbidgee River in NSW Riverina's region.
A section of the Newell Highway, which runs from the Queensland border to the Murray River, is also closed, with water over the road at Gillenbah near Narrandera impacting both it and the Sturt Highway.
Road Freight NSW said there would be a flow-on effect from those road closures and others in Victoria.
"Its certainly slowing down the freight task in Australia at the moment, but at this point that's all its doing," chief executive officer Simon O'Hara said.
"There definitely will be a slow-down in terms of getting goods either from South Australia or from Sydney."
Local supermarket delays
At Narrandera, highway access in three directions has been cut off by days of flooding.
The town sits at the juncture of the Sturt and Newell highways — right near the section of road heavily impacted by floodwaters.
For local supermarket owner Kathy Patel it meant deliveries were arriving hours late.
She worried that if highways remained closed for much longer her stocks would begin to run low.
Ms Patel said fresh fruit and vegetables would be the first to run behind, but with routes to two major cities affected, anything could be delayed.
"Some [deliveries] are from Sydney, and some are from Melbourne, so we might be going to get some issues with the deliveries and [it] might be an impact on our business."
Impact ongoing
Flood affected communities in NSW and Victoria will be monitoring the impact of more rain expected later this week.
If roads remain closed, Mr O'Hara said there could be difficulties getting supplies to supermarkets.
"If the weather system persists and continues as it has, then there is the potential for that, but at this stage we don't envisage supply chain issues," he said.
"It really turns on what the weather is going to do, but if this sort of rain continues, then we should expect further and longer delays."
Mr O'Hara said truck drivers would usually consider a detour through Victoria.
"The question is, given there's been significant flooding and problems in Victoria, how opportune that's going to be for them to be able to get that workaround to get them into South Australia," he said.
Detours on local roads
Traffic that would usually travel from Sydney to Adelaide on the Sturt Highway is now being detoured onto local roads than run thorough towns like Coolamon, west of Wagga Wagga.
Coolamon Shire Council general manager Tony Donoghue said the increase of heavy vehicles on local roads came as they were damaged by previous wet weather.
"There is damage already and there will be, depending on how long this lasts, further damage," he said.
"[The Sturt and Newell highways] are built and designed to take quite large and heavy vehicles so our local and regional roads don't suffer that level of impact."
Mr Donoghue said the council would be seeking compensation from the state government for the impact of increased traffic on their roads.
"We will seek their help in making sure that we can keep the road infrastructure up to its needed task over the next couple of weeks, and also to repair the damage that will cause," he said.
