After the Flood

It was, by any measure, a once in a century flood. Normanton and nearby towns had initially received 300mm of rain in one night. The Herbert River was at levels not seen since 1967.

Disaster areas extended from the Cape York Peninsula down through Pormpuraaw in the Gulf and as far west as Cloncurry.

Over 30 councils and many primary producers were directly affected. Thousands of livestock lost. Hectares of crops destroyed.

A bridge crossing at Ingham was rebuilt by the army after the town was left completely isolated by the rising waters.

As additional low-pressure systems moved through and remained, as if anchored to the sky, for days on end, river crossings vanished and eventually the network of roads used by freight carriers, into the farthest reaches like Boulia, were swallowed up as the residents of surrounding communities were evacuated.

By the time a slow-moving trough dragged tropical moisture inland a few weeks later much of far north and northern Queensland was under water.

Blenners Transport, whose transport network is plugged right into this ecosystem, was one of the major carriers that had dozens of trucks, all over the northern parts of the state, soon marooned.

As drivers found the catastrophic scale of the flooding impregnable by road, they reported back to base, as the Blenners key ops team monitored communications 24/7 in the hope of finding a way through.

It was a tough start to the year as Director Roger Blennerhassett recalls it.

“There were widespread power outages across the network and virtually every major road we relied on was under water,” he says.

“Our team was looking at government websites every hour and when they weren’t they were relying on drivers sending through photos of river levels in anticipation there might be a break.”

This lasted for two weeks. All the while the pinch points started to propagate. Proserpine. Blackall-Tambo. Ayr. Greenvale. Charters Towers. Another alternate route each time was taken off the board.

Even the far western lane often relied upon in times of natural disaster was closed.

“Every route was inaccessible because of the floods, and we physically had no alternative,” recalls Roger.

“If we couldn’t get information from some of the remote sites, we had drivers physically stuck there relaying what they were seeing, sending through photos and texts about the river levels. And then we would determine as to which direction we could then send them and identify the route that might have more chance of opening over the many others.”

Driver information was critical. They were the eyes and ears on the ground, ascertaining the level each river was at sitting for days on end feeding back up-to-the-minute updates to the Blenners command centre.

All of this happening during a staff shortage being felt across vast parts of the road transport industry at the time — peak season for most.

“We were facing the biggest challenges nearly in a lifetime in our business,” says Roger.

“All our staff during that period put in a huge effort to get us through. To keep our customer’s freight moving under the toughest conditions let alone having a shortage of personnel put on top of our existing team but they rose above it and got us and our customers through. Everyone stood up.”

The year prior, Blenners had opened a brand-new 3,200m² building on a 16,000m² site at a cost of $17 million in Cairns. It had taken ten months to complete.

Having the facility in place this year was timely for the local community during the disaster as it allowed them to hold emergency stock in a dry storage area with capacity for 600 pallets while the freezer/chiller amenity has provision to hold 900 pallets.

This was pivotal to have before local roads were eventually obstructed by floodwaters.

“Cairns is a big one to offer a buffer of storage for that wet season period,” says Roger.

“We have food already up there that can be rolled out to keep the community fed if and when the road is cut.”

The Atherton Tablelands, an ever-growing fruit bowl, helps form a bigger picture for the investment Blenners Transport has made into Cairns.

This region is expanding in terms of the volume it can produce and the diversity of different products it will yield.

“We now have more service offerings there with room to grow,” says Roger. “As more crop gets planted and fruit comes off it in the years to come, we’ve got room to handle that growth for our customers.”

In September, Blenners added another new facility to its network this time in Central Queensland.

The purpose-built 2,500m² Rockhampton depot contains five docks, a temperature-controlled anteroom as well as chiller and freezer rooms available for storage of dry, chilled, or frozen products. The site itself employs nine staff and is equipped with onsite diesel storage for refuelling trucks.

For the increase in volume of freight, Blenners is running four B-doubles from Brisbane to Rockhampton daily. Here a semi-trailer, a 16-pallet Isuzu, three 14-pallet Isuzus and an 8-pallet Isuzu provide the area with local deliveries.

The newest depots have enabled Blenners to attract new accounts as well as to bolster their services for existing partners.

“At both sites we have added new customers, straight away,” says Roger.

“By having the extra cold rooms and more storage facilities we have taken on board customers we didn’t have prior to offering that service.”

While the business doesn’t have any plans to expand outside the existing towns it presently operates within, they do expect to offer a larger scope of services as a result of these property investments.

A direct byproduct of this will be the benefit of seeing quicker turnaround times for its trucks in delivering and picking up freight.

For a 38-year-old family business it retains a serious footprint across the fleet.

At current they have 204 Kenworth prime movers, 361 refrigerated trailers, and 70 rail containers at their disposal. The Kenworth units are running across Australia, primarily up and down the eastern seaboard.

This includes a new Kenworth T620 powered by a 550hp Euro 6 Cummins X15 Efficiency Series engine paired with an Endurant XD Pro automated transmission.

Since August, the T620 has been pulling a 34-pallet B-double loaded with bananas to Melbourne every week and frozen goods return to Townsville. It has had a seamless integration with the prime mover fleet according to Roger.

“It’s performing fine with no issues,” he says. “From our perspective the main changes are having the Euro 6 powertrain, and they’ve noticeably improved the dash electronics and in-cab systems. The driver is happy with it.”

Just this year the fleet has introduced nine sets of new PBS B-doubles for an express linehaul service.

There’s a mix of 38-pallet and 42-pallet units all hooked up to Kenworth K220 prime movers that feature FTE refrigerated bodies.

They are running on dedicated overnight shuttle legs Brisbane to North Queensland. The other brand in the fleet commanding a significant presence is Isuzu.

In fact, Blenners defers to Isuzu for every rigid truck in operations of which it has 50 units. Dual front steering axles are specified for Isuzu’s FYJ 300-350 vehicle platform in 14-pallet and more recently 16-pallet configurations, that were introduced late last year.

The push internally for these larger twin-steer units was motivated by increasing the carrying capacity on shorter regional runs that, given the size of the state, work out as distant journeys all the same despite not technically being classified as long hauls.

From the new site in Rockhampton, the area to cover is massive. Aside from the Rockhampton township itself these Isuzus venture to Emerald, Gladstone, Biloela and Yeppoon.

The Rockhampton trucks cover between 1500 and 2000kms per week. High intensity. High miles.

“Again, it’s about providing better service capacity for our customers by getting more freight on each run,” says Roger.

“We’ve been with Isuzu for over 30 years. Every rigid purchased in that time frame has been with Isuzu because they are tough and reliable. Parts availability and support are top notch.”

An Isuzu FSR 140-260 with an 8-pallet body is tasked with local jobs going into tight spaces for deliveries such as restaurants, pubs and clubs. It’s a rarity one of their food service trucks is fitted with a refrigerated body by anyone other than FTE.

“They are the most thermally efficient body in Australia,” says Roger. “The quality of finish. Their service and support — FTE are the best.”

That’s crucial when running multiple units, day in and day out, in the stifling tropics. Relative humidity levels frequently exceed 70 per cent during summer afternoons in ‘Rocky’ where the mountain range makes it a magnet to trap hot westerly winds from the desert.

The FYJ 16-palleters have been introduced across Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns.

With one unit each initially delivered into the depots there are more on order for deployment next year. All of these trucks have been purchased from TSV Automotive in Townsville. The partnership goes back nearly 20 years.

“We buy all Isuzu genuine parts and they’ve got great parts supply,” Roger says. “We can always rely on them to have the right part on the shelf.”

Blenners Transport relies on third-party independent service agents for their fleet. They work, where possible, with the best in each town.

Serious longevity is expected of these rigid trucks which are scheduled for replacement on ten-year cycles.

“We run the Allison AMT transmission,” adds Roger. “It’s tough. It’s bulletproof. That pretty much sums it up.”

The current market for road freight is unfortunately flooded with fly-by-night operators who are cutting corners and reducing rates. In the age of supposed sustainability none of it is. Stability therefore is key.

Leveraging a network of eight depots, with head office in Tully and a large site in Brisbane’s Darra, Blenners is not lacking the firm footing with which to meet the economic challenges all businesses are presently confronted with in the industry according to Roger.

“Our long tenure for nearly four decades and high service levels gives our customers the confidence to stay with us,” says Roger.

“We’re available for any customer 24/7. They’ve got our phone numbers, and they know they can call us direct if they want help with a new job or service requirement.”

As senior management, Roger or his brother Ben Blennerhassett and father, Les, founder of Blenners Transport, know that their personal touch is a point of difference not every business it competes with can offer.

Nor are they impervious to recognising the moment when external forces call for holding back the tide before it can move forward.

The rain, as the courageous Blenners staff understood back in February, won’t last forever.

“We’ll keep building our business in close partnership with our cherished customers,” says Roger. “Blenners Transport is here for the long haul.”