Truck drivers stuck in North Sydney frustrated by long waits for ferry

Roughly 250 transport truck drivers are waiting to board Marine Atlantic ferries, and some say they're tired, running out of food and losing money.

Brad Jackson has been sleeping in his truck at the ferry terminal in North Sydney, N.S.,for five days while waiting to sail to Newfoundland.

"You're already out of food and so you're either going to grocery stores or you're going out for dinner," said the Innisfil,Ont., man, who arrived in Cape Breton last Friday morning.

"You're waiting. There's one shower on [the] property. You always have to wait. It's long lineups, everything, to do anything."

As of Wednesday morning, Marine Atlantic hadresumed full ferry operations to Port aux Basques,N.L., but it was still dealing with a travel backlog.

Sailings have been impacted since last week, when record rainfall, high winds and waves caused highway damage on the southwest coast of Newfoundland and led to cancelled crossings between Cape Breton and Port aux Basques.

Jackson was told hemay be able to cross the Cabot Strait on Saturday morning.

Costs piling up

Waiting at the terminalmeans spending roughly $60 a day on food and costly trips by taxi to the local grocery store for Jackson.

He says that money is being spent on essentials, such as dog food for his travelcompanion.

A truckowner-operator, Jackson gets paid by the mile for deliveries and estimates a loss of about $3,000for eachweek he's left waiting.

"I'll just have to keep working. I probably won't be able to take Christmas off. I'll be spending it in the truck," he said.

"A lot of people don't realize what we go through on a normal basis, and for us to be sitting here for this long, it's basically maddening, and then you get people who don't really acknowledge what we have to go through."

Jacksonremembers a time when stranded drivers would be given food coupons to local restaurants.

But he says that hasn't happenedso far, despite this being his longest wait yet.

On Tuesday evening, the stranded drivers were delivereda meal that included soup and sandwiches from Salvation Army volunteers.

Time away from family

Sean Layman is travelling back home to Newfoundland after picking up a load of piping in Ontario.

Layman has beenaway from his family for four weeks now. Drivers such as Layman and Jackson are left waiting because they're not carrying cargo that is considered perishable or a priority.

"My family is priority to me, and we're stuck here now four days now so priority has to end somewhere and start shipping people across."

Layman said drivers who are sitting idle aregetting frustrated, but are trying to keep good spirits.

Unknown when backlog will clear

Marine Atlantic says travellers whose reservations were impacted by the storm damage in Newfoundland will be sent a travel advisory and be rebooked on a later ferry.

A ferry departed Port aux Basques on Wednesday morning and is headed to North Sydney.The vessel will be returning to Port aux Basqueswith a load of transport trucks later this evening.

"Once we return to regular operations, we will begin addressing the backlog of traffic as quickly as possible," said spokesperson Darrell Mercer by email.

"The other challenge we are watching is a weather system moving into the region this weekend. This could hamper some of our recovery efforts, however, we are expecting to move significant volumes of traffic over the next 48 hours."

Part of the problem in attempting to reduce the number of trucks waiting in North Sydney is that Mercer says each day more vehicles are arriving.