I live in Brisbane (I'm fine). I helped with the clean up - cooking about 200 hot dogs last Saturday for the volunteers. The sight was absolutely unbelievable. Houses were gutted. Garbage furniture all over the streets, piles taller than me.<p>One thing I will never forget though. The smell.
The 2011 linux.conf.au conference is going ahead next week in spite of the flood: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112337" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112337</a><p>"The team encourages everyone to still come to Brisbane and support local business and the community - we need your support!"<p>After having been through the after-effects of an earthquake where I live it's been clear to see the difference it makes for businesses that can open to have custom.
There is an inherent conflict between using a dam for drinking water and using it for flood management. That the Wivenhoe was and is used for both is not a surprise, particularly after the droughts leading up to 2008, but the flooding raises serious questions about how sensible that would be in future.<p>That said, the Wivenhoe in this case did precisely what it was meant to do, and those who operated it did an admirable job under extremely trying circumstances, IMHO. It simply wasn't designed to cope with the volumes of rainfall that occurred, afaict.<p>I hope the forthcoming inquiry will not focus so much on the smaller-scale "tactical" decisions that led up to the flooding (it will be news to nobody if it turns out some mistakes were made: I'm sure there were), but more on the state's water management strategy as a whole. Unfortunately the news reporting I've seen so far has already tended towards the former.<p>It's water management strategy that has failed SE Queensland <i>twice</i> in the last few years: first when the water nearly ran out after the drought, and now only two years later there's too much water by half. Neither drought nor flood are strangers to Australia, so half-arsed measures and excuses should not cut it for anybody. Increasingly unstable weather conditions caused by climate change make it even more urgent that we get this right.
Also relevant to this is a submission I posted last week which didn't get any attention unfortunately: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2096644" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2096644</a> about a site - <a href="http://FightTheFloods.com" rel="nofollow">http://FightTheFloods.com</a> which my partner and I created to try and help those who are in need of assistance (volunteers, supplies whatever) to get the message out to people who may be able to help. Since I launched it last Wednesday, it's reached 350+ people registered, and I've personally seen a number of the requests for assistance be fulfilled, so I think it's made at least a bit of a difference to someone, so therefore it's been worthwhile.
Interesting there is no "outrage" yet in the media regarding this disaster. I was raised in New Orleans, LA, so I see these types of things differently. And on the surface, Brisbane looks eerily similar to NOLA.<p>Is this an event that could have been prevented or is this a 1000 year flood?
This was done by @jimwhimpey. His (brief) write up: <a href="http://log.valhallaisland.com/post/2785174890" rel="nofollow">http://log.valhallaisland.com/post/2785174890</a>
lessons from floods, reinforced for the 9,753rd time:<p>1. __<i>have home on high ground</i>__<p>2. see 1<p>3. see 1<p>all else is bullshit and/or out of your control (eg. level of flooding, degree of local or government competence/planning/assistance, etc.)