Thursday - September 01, 2005

First-Hand Account

This is remarkable.  There is an ISP in New Orleans that is still running.  Their “crisis manager”, who is ex-military, is holed up in the building with an unspecified number of people, supplies and weapons to ensure the data center is running and secure.  This is his journal.  There is also a live streaming webcam here.

This is an excerpt from yesterday:

Ok, we went down to the ground floors to lock down the building tight since a couple of people holed up with us took off. While we were down there we surveyed a huge area of the CBD.

Flooding in the CBD: Poydras is flooded from near the west side of the Superdome down to Baronne street. All of the side streets are flooded too down that way. Baronne is the last flooded street as you head to the river. Poydras is clear from Baronne to the river.

There is no water that we could see from Poydras to the interstate starting at Baronne and going all the way to the river. Headed toward Canal St. from Poydras, I saw no flooding at all from just past Baronne to the river. That’s a huge area of the CBD without water on the streets. That’s way better than the warnings we got.

Looting: The police are looting. This has been confirmed by several independent sources. Some of the looting might be “legitimate” in as much as that word has any meaning in this context. They have broken into ATMs and safes: confirmed. We have eyewitnesses to this. They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use. They have also looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent “criminals” from doing so. But who knows their true intentions. We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. He reports that command lapses more than 24 hours between check-ins, and that most of the force are “like deer in the headlights.” NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people we’ve been talking to say they are not recognizing the NOPD as a legitimate authority anymore, since cops have been seen looting in Walmarts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Don’t shoot the messenger....

Personal: Securing a 27 floor high rise with no elevator support is not fun. I am totally worn out. I am gonna chill for an hour, eat dinner, then perform maintenance. But never fear, Outpost Crystal and Team SOTI have knuckled down and will never quit. Never. We are prepared to go all the way to see this thing through.

Thanks again for all the support and love. One day this will all be over and ancient history, but I’ll never forget the kindness of strangers. Keep the less fortunate people in your thoughts and prayers.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/01/2005 at 11:23 AM   
Filed Under: • History • Insanity • Science-Technology • War-Stories •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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