Delivery delay: Impact of B.C. highway closures will soon be felt in Alberta

B.C. devastation means supply issues in Alberta The devastation in B.C. could lead to supply shortages in Alberta. Stephanie Thomas reports.

CALGARY — Grudev Sandhu and his truck full of frozen food are supposed to be in Surrey, B.C. right now.

Instead, five days after leaving Toronto, he's parked beside the highway west of Calgary, waiting for further direction now that part of his route is washed away.

"I cannot keep going," said Sandhu. "The company is trying to see if I can unload in Calgary then I will return from here to Toronto."

Sandhu says he's slept in his tractor-trailer the last two nights as he awaits word from head office.

Major highways and rail routes in southern B.C. are impassable after days of torrential rain and flooding.

Jesse Meyer was hauling grain from north of Grande Prairie to Abbotsford when he got caught between washed out roads.

"We can't even go back and we can't go forward, we really have no option right now," said Meyer "We are in our truck so we can sleep here and we have some extra food. We are comfortable, we just don't know how long we are going to be stranded here."

Experts say it could be a while.

"If you think of all the routes we have between Calgary Edmonton and Vancouver this is the first time I'm aware of where every single thing is cut off," said Kent Fellows of the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy.

With roads and train tracks closed, and the Trans Mountain Pipeline taken offline as a precaution, nothing is moving, That means the impact of the flooding will be felt by people far from it.

"This isn't a slow down, this is a shutdown," says Fellows, "The longer this takes the more you are going to see shortages at stores and increasing prices of the things we can get."

It's believed up to 100 vehicles could still be stranded by mudslides or washed out roads and there is no timeline on when they'll be free.

Meyer says he just wants to get home.

"We just don't know how long we are going to be stuck here," he said. "The restaurant here also says they are almost out of food. There are quite a few people here as well."

It's estimated that roughly 10 per cent of vehicles travelling between Calgary and Vancouver are transporting products for resale.

Companies are now being advised to keep their products in warehouses until the roads reopen or alternative routes are found.