LCA 2011: Organisers on floodwatch as event nears

Sam Varghese
Wednesday, 12 January 2011 12:11

Opinion and Analysis

The organisers of the 12th Australian national Linux conference are keeping an anxious eye on the floodwaters in Brisbane as the event nears.

The venue for the conference - the Gardens Point campus of the Queensland University of Technology - was closed this morning but no decision has yet been made on whether the event needs to be called off.

The conference is scheduled to be held from January 24 to 29. It attracts delegates from all over the country and abroad and normally plays host to anything from 600 to 800 people.

The state of Queensland has been hit by floods over the last few weeks and 10 people have already lost their lives, with many more missing. Areas of the Brisbane CBD have been affected by the floods and power was turned off to many areas today as a precautionary measure.

In a statement today, chief conference organiser Shaun Nykvist said: "The current venue for linux.conf.au is located on the Brisbane River at QUT (Gardens Point campus).

"At 0800hrs on Wednesday 12/01/2011 the conference has not been cancelled even though the venue remains closed.

"According to all reports there is an expectation that the river will rise later today with a peak on Thursday."

The Brisbane River is expected to reach 4.5 metres today and peak at 5.5 metres tomorrow (Thursday). This is higher than the levels reached in the 1974 floods.

"We should know the full extent of the floods around this time and will continually keep people updated via the web and social networking sites," Nykvist said.

"Please understand that while many team members are not likely to be directly inundated by flood water, many of them are currently assisting family and friends move, so it will be difficult to respond to the many emails being received about floods and whether LCA2011 will go ahead."