Add Category
As the wild weather eases in Australia's north, unprecedented damage has shown just how easily our remote road network can fail.
Extraordinary pictures show the bridge connecting Fitzroy Crossing to the rest of Western Australia completely severed, after torrential rains opened an inland sea in the Kimberley.
Meanwhile, remote communities in central Australia could be cut off for weeks after ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie's U-turn back into the NT.
Experts say the situation highlights the desperate need for more to be done to fix Australia's vast web of roads.
How bad is the current flooding?
A level of flooding is expected each wet season across northern and central Australia.
But the flooding in the Kimberley has been described as a once-in-a-century event.
WA Premier Mark McGowan said the "extraordinary" damage to the Great Northern Highway will take months to fix, leaving part the Kimberley cut off from supply routes from Perth.
"The [Fitzroy River] bridge will have to be rebuilt, and any work can't commence until after the wet season," Mr McGowan said.
Around a dozen remote communities in Central Australia face potentially weeks cut off from the outside world, with emergency services saying they stand ready to fly vital supplies in if necessary.
In recent weeks, ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie also impacted the Victoria and Barkly highways that connect the NT to Western Australia and Queensland respectively.
As a result of these impacts, food and freight shipments to the NT and the Kimberley are being re-routed through Adelaide.
In some cases, that adds up to 3,500 kilometres to the trip.
Louise Bilato from the NT's Road Transport Association told the ABC earlier this week the vast distances could add "a 30 per cent, at least, premium" on freight costs.
Just how prone are our supply chains to flooding?
Very, according to Curtin University transport and logistics expert Liz Jackson.
"Australia is frighteningly dependent on our road network," she said.
"I would be so bold as to term Australia's road network the veins that hold the body of the Australian cultural and financial economy together.
"But the road network is dreadfully forgotten and is certainly not good enough for what we need."
While the crisis is hitting far-flung and relatively small communities the hardest, even relatively major centres have been impacted.
Early last year, the supply of fresh food and groceries to supermarkets in Darwin and Alice Springs was interrupted after flooding cut the main rail and highway link to Adelaide.
Ms Jackson said cut roads also impact the ability for pastoralists and even major mining sites to ship their goods.
The Tanami gold mine in central Australia, for example, has had its only road link in and out — the unsealed Tanami Road linking Halls Creek and Alice Springs — cut off by floodwaters for several weeks.
What can be done to fix remote roads?
Remote residents have spent years trying to highlight the problems with the northern road network.
But things often get bogged in disputes between governments — federal, state and local — about who should pay for expensive repairs and upgrades.
Halls Creek Shire president Malcolm Edwards has been advocating for the Tanami Road to be sealed for decades, and funding for it was finally included in last year's federal budget.
But the job won't be finished until 2030.
If the road was sealed, Mr Edwards said supplies could be short-cutting between Alice Springs and Halls Creek right now.
"Our supply route [to Halls Creek] from Perth now is right around Adelaide, Alice Springs, Katherine ... and that doubles our freight costs," Mr Edwards said.
Ms Jackson said desperate attention is needed on upgrading the nation's roads to better withstand more extreme weather events, as well as heavier freight.
But she also stressed the need for remote and regional centres to have more storage capacity, rather than concentrating supplies in depots in the south and east.
"Why don't we have facilities that can spread out this inventory to these more regional locations, so when we do face the threat of these regional communities being subject to natural disasters, there is at least supplies nearby?" she said.
"Having bigger warehousing facilities in these towns really is the only option, and it's going to require investment."
In the shorter term, Ms Bilato said easing restrictions on vehicle lengths has helped freight companies transport more goods and keep costs down.
Can the sudden focus on 'road resiliency' last?
In the aftermath of Western Australia's worst ever flooding disaster in the Kimberley, the federal government has committed "significant" flood aid funding to help the region recover.
Before the disaster hit, a federal parliamentary inquiry had been set up to look at "road resiliency" across Australia.
Darwin's federal MP, Luke Gosling, who is the committee's chair, said the inquiry will visit remote locations across the country to explore how to make our roads better withstand climate disasters.
"Australia's a big country, the [Northern Territory] is a big place. We've got very extensive road networks that aren't well able to withstand massive flood events," he said.
"We know extreme weather events are going to be more frequent and they are really impacting on our road system."
He said the inquiry will look into the design and construction methods, and even the materials used, when building remote roads.
Ms Jackson said she hoped a focus stayed on the issue as the flood waters recede.
"It's not only the worry about where your next meal [is coming from], or particularly if you're dependent on medication, where that is going to come from," she said.
"The people who have been cut off [in Fitzroy Crossing] are feeling like they are being forgotten by their state and federal governments, and that is appalling.
"That is an awful, awful feeling that you have been forgotten by your nation."