WINNIPEG — Highway 75, the main line between Winnipeg and the U.S. has re-opened to regular traffic. Floods had shut the road for a month.

“It’s definitely a relief to have all the roads open again," said the woman who answered todaystrucking.com’s phone call to the Municipality of Morris Tuesday morning. “The town was lookin’ awfully dead there for a while.”

Not only was the town dead, the 100-km forced detour added an estimated $1.5 million to the cost of trucking from Winnipeg to the border crossing at Emerson.

About 1,000 trucks a day make the trip.

Many of the gas stations and restaurants near Morris get the lion’s share of their revenue from the cross-border truck traffic.

Lisa Wiebe is the manager of the single truck stop en route, the Mohawk Husky.

"Thank goodness we have a pretty good local customer clientele, they kept us in business, though we did have to cut back on our hours,” she told todaystrucking.com.

“I was sure glad to see those signs announcing that the detour was over. You have no idea what it’s like until you’ve lived through something like this.”

Wiebe says she’s seen worse; in 2009 the road was closed for 35 days. And she’s happily fatalistic — “whatcha going to do? these things happen," — but she’s also glad to know local Manitobans are trying to find a solution to the perennial problem.

Bob Dolyniuk of the Manitoba Trucking Association is glad to artery is open again, but says it’s high time the province comes up with a "permanent solution to the yearly flooding question."

He tells us that while "it’s nice" the province is determined to "build up" Hwy 75 higher, it’s not going to solve all the problems, "specifically the one at Morris."

The MTA continues to advance a proposal it presented during the 2009 flood, which would create a RTAC truck route south on Hwy 59 as far down as 23; then west to Hwy. 200, down to 201, and back onto 75 to the border.

Dolyniuk says the truck route would give carriers on the east side of the province an alternative to the Emerson border as well as create a RTAC route in a region where none currently exist.

The MTA boss also says the route makes even more sense now that the province is trying to position the inland CenrePort as a vital North American freight gateway and cargo staging ground.