DirectNIC Crisis Manager Braves the Chaos of New Orleans

Aleks Clark writes "The Interdictor, a DirectNIC crisis manager, is currently braving the madness of post-Katrina New Orleans. Server rescues, OC4 repairs and live video and audio feeds abound as he and his crew battle the odds with what seems like the entire internet at his back. 1700+ People are tracking his blog, and IRC channels are full to capacity."

Comments

we are busy..

[joeldg]

as a directnic employee working remotely from Manhattan I have been working round the clock to aid these guys any way I can.
we are on freenode in #interdictor

we have had a lot of support, thank you guys.

as far as directnic employees, we have made contact with most, we are still missing our entire accounting/HR department and many of our support people are MIA, we can only assume they got out.

as a company, the majority of our employees are currently homeless and are regrouping in Florida currently.

They are pretty hardcore there, not sure they can even get out now..

DONATE

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Cross: 1-800-HELP-NOW or www.redcross.org

AmeriCares:americares.org

RoommateClick.com
Site offering a service for the New Orleans homeless, free of charge.

Baton Rouge Area Foundation(BRAF): 877.387.6126 or braf.org

Episcopal Relief & Development: 1-800-334-7626 or www.er-d.org

United Methodist Committee on Relief: 1-800-554-8583 or gbgm-umc.org/umcor/emergency/hurricanes/2005

Salvation Army: 1-800-SAL-ARMY or www.salvationarmyusa.org

Catholic Charities: 1-800-919-9338 or www.catholiccharitiesusa.org

FEMA Charity tips: www.fema.gov/rrr/help2.shtm

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster: www.nvoad.org

Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: www.la-spca.org

Operation Blessing: 1-800-436-6348 or www.ob.org

America's Second Harvest: 1-800-344-8070 or www.secondharvest.org

Adventist Community Services: 1-800-381-7171 or www.adventist.communityservices.org

Christian Disaster Response: 1-941-956-5183 or 1-941-551-9554 or www.cdresponse.org/cdrhome.html

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee: 1-800-848-5818 or www.crwrc.org

Church World Service: 1-800-297-1516 or www.churchworldservice.org

Convoy of Hope: 1-417-823-8998 or www.convoyofhope.org

Lutheran Disaster Response: 1-800-638-3522 or www.elca.org/disaster

Mennonite Disaster Service: 1-717-859-2210 or www.mds.mennonite.net

Nazarene Disaster Response: 1-888-256-5886 or www.nazarenedisasterresponse.org

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: 1-800-872-3283 or www.pcusa.org/pda

Southern Baptist Convention - Disaster Relief: 1-800-462-8657, ext. 6440 or www.namb.net

IRC is NOT FULL

[The Kow]

We are NOT full to capacity, please feel free to participate.

irc.freenode.net #interdictor

There are several sub-channels, such as #interdictor-chat for discussion/dialogue, #interdictor-scanner for a transcript of the radio scanner, etc.

We are also trying to track any news and information we can find to provide a summarized glimpse of the events as they happen. We're avoiding things that are already available through major news outlets, but any first-hand accounts, independent news sources, eye-witness information, international news, etc. (anything you couldn't find through, say, Fox News or MSNBC), please don't hesitate to help out.

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[GooberToo]

"Hell, the dikes wouldn't have overflowed if the repair money to fix them hadn't been diverted to the dept of homeland "security" last summer."

Not true. I guess it makes for a more dramatic story if they leave out the facts. Simple fact is, if the money had not been diverted, the money would of been spent on a project which would still not have been completed and the city would have still be lost. But, telling half truths on the news makes for a much better story. I heard this from an Army Corps of Engineers representative on the news this morning. According to him, even if they had started the project in 2002, the project probably would not have been completed until at least 2008. This is 2005, last I checked, which means the project probably wouldn't of started until about a year ago, which means we would of flushed that money with the rest of the city.

Re:Data Link Source

[thogard]

The OC4 will be fiber all the way to a major exchange building and most of that sort of stuff is way up top. If its a typical telco, they have lots of batteries for the OC4 gear because they tend to build battery packs as if they were for the exchange gear which takes far more power. The result is there is a very expensive fiber switch thats has a direct fiber connection from very far away (maybe as far Dallas or Atlanta) and it has power. The risk to that type of connection is that sometimes the water will cause noise in the fiber splices or the generator will die or someone will break the upstream link while trying to fix something far away.

Re:WTF, People!

[VoidEngineer]

please. get a dose of reality. he *is* supporting the government/military/Red Cross. he's supporting a data backbone, for christ's sake. have you actually read the damn blog? they're wading through the water setting up links to the city hall. they're coordinating between deisel runs, city hall, and the police force to make sure that people can keep in contact with the outside! do you know what the hell an OC3 even is? for christs sake, get a grip on reality and get over yourself.

he's getting fuel runs because the police precincts are *abandoned*, and his office *isn't*. he's getting fuel runs because his infrastucture is *still intact*. the police and military are helping *him*, because he's got his shit together and is keeping data trunk lines running.

and just for the record, blogging, as a one-to-many means of communication, is the most efficient way that these folks are able to communicate to everybody else. they don't have time to sift through emails and make phone calls, so they're using their blogs as a broadcasting mechanism.

God, I hate self-possessed tards who don't appreciate the work that other people do, and don't know what an OC3 or a metro-area disaster recovery plan is.

for someone with such a low UserID and who, apparently, has been around here for a long time, I'm surprised that you don't understand the importance of keeping telephone lines up in emergency situations.

To any moderators reading, please mod parent post as Troll.

interdictor cutomized Google Map...

[Krioni]

I've started to put together a customized Google Map of interdictor's area:
interdictor map.

I've only got a little on there now, but will add more (like other flood lines, etc) if people send me email with coordinates to gmap AT danREMOVEshockley.com

I've got a simple click-to-find-coordinates map at:
Test Map Coords

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[demachina]

This article tends to contradict your assertion. It kind of sounds like the corp was in fact going around Louisiana begging for money to do emergency repairs. Not clear if the repairs would have salvaged the levies that collapsed but one was on the canal levee that failed. When it comes to levees the old saying "a stitch in time" usually applies. If you let a crack develop or let it sink, when flood water starts spilling at the weak spot it quickly takes out the whole thing.

"Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:"

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

"The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain."

THIS IS NOT libertarianism

[SonicSpike]

This is NOT libertarianism!

THIS IS ANARCHY in the city! NOTHING LESS.
ANARCHY ANARCHY ANARCHY!

According to http://www.m-w.com/ Anarachy:
1 a : absence of government b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority

Libertarianism involves a civilized society. I am sure you can Google to find lots of books and essays on the subject. But a few requirements for libertarianism:
- LIMITED government (not non-existant)
- free markets
- personal responsibility
- individual freedoms

The main philosophy behind libertarianism is 'your rights go so far until they impede on other people's rights"

DO NOT spread misinformation like this; it is iresponsible, and ignorant!

"The Real News"

[cyranoVR]

This is the entry that made my jaw hit the floor:

THE REAL NEWS
The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:

"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:

Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.

It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.

Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.

There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.

Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.

The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.

The buses never stop.

Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.

He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."

He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.

Re:If only the federal, state, and local governmen

[praecantator]

Just as a bit of fairness to the people at FEMA, people should take a look at this article; FEMA hasn't really existed as an independent agency for a while, and to quote the article for those too lazy to read it,

This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

The problem with FEMA preparedness and intervention goes a bit higher up.

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[WindBourne]

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/katrina/pdf/083105/a 5.pdf

More likely, a lot of both. What ppl seem to be forgetting here, is that NO police department about 5 years ago, was considered the most corrupt in the nation. In fact, during a federal probe of the city, they had to call an early end to it, because they had to stop a murder. Apparently the chief of police (or possibly an assistant chief) had ordered a hit on somebody for not paying up.

That does not mean that all are corrupt there. But no doubt there are a lot that are.