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

All I gotta say is...

[Incongruity]

These guys set the bar for uptime and connectivity... I've been continually impressed. Bravo!

Re:All I gotta say is...

[alc6379]

Hate to push you off of your high horse, but how exactly are we to show compassion towards someone committing rape?

Looting for food and water, maybe beating somebody up that went wacko all of a sudden (posing a risk for you and the people around), maybe I can see, but what justification can you give for, "Whoops! All hell is breaking loose, water's everywhere, I gots to get my freak on!"

Re:All I gotta say is...

[alc6379]

It's cute how it's so easy to pick out one atrocity and focus on it to the exclusion of all else. Lets say we killed all the rapists in NO right now, this very second. How many do you think there are? Do you think thats the major problem there?

I think there are FAR more major problems than that going on down there. People are dying due to being stuck where they are without neccessities-- that's the major issue. I've not lost perspective on this, please don't think that.

People are going to act badly in those sort of circumstances. Hell, a shitload of people are acting badly in far milder ones - here in Baton Rouge people with food, water, power, and vehicles are beating the shit out of each other over cutting in line for gas. People are so scared of all the brown criminals from NO coming here that the town was practically paralyzed by rumors (non-factual) of rioting and looting at the local mall.

See, and that's fucked up. I can completely agree with you-- people are almost guaranteed to act badly in situations like these. But, I can still recognize that it's not right, no matter what the situation. Sure, there's going to be a great deal of situational morality-- people do what they have to so they can survive. You'll never catch me judging people for breaking through a storefront for essentials when there's a lack of food like there is; however, you will find me angry at people raping one another, or anyone else who takes the opportunity to "get it for themselves", like grabbing a DVD player while in Wal-Mart getting food.

No, NO is not a healthy place to be right now. Poeople aren't at thier best. But honestly, a lot of people here on slashdot wouldn't do any better in the same circumstances. Get them out of there, get some food and water, clothes, basic hygiene in place and you'll see a marked improvment in character and behavior. It sure would be nice if everyone there had come together and supported each other until outside help could come. But human nature has it's dark side and getting on your own high horse about it is just hypocritical.

You didn't make a differentiation in who was covered by your initial statement. I specifically focused on rape because it's not essntial to live. Senseless shit is what I'm incensed about. People are out there-- theft of food, water, etc will undoubtedly be looked over, but there's no excuse for just going ape-shit when a disaster strikes.

It's not hypocritical at all to condemn senseless acts of violence, even in a disaster situation, where it's almost expected that people will go nuts. My main point is that in times like this, it's perfectly OK to still maintain standards of decency, but be able to survive. I don't care what's going on, it's not acceptable to corner someone with a weapon, and force yourself upon them.

Re:All I gotta say is...

[MillionthMonkey]

These people have had ample warning. They live on a hurricane evacuation route. They're arrogant enough to "sit this one out like the rest of them" and now they're crying uncle.

Are you on acid? You expect a major American city to just completely empty out? Even with an organized evacuation it's difficult.

But of course, there was no organized evacuation. No buses, nothing. People were just told to leave on their own. Some people don't own cars. Or gasoline. They live paycheck to paycheck. Lots of these people rely on government checks that arrive on the first of the month. At the end of the month, they're ALWAYS broke. Some people are disabled and in wheelchairs, or care for people in wheelchairs. Are you going to talk trash about the hospital patients wading through the water with backless hospital gowns? Or the woman who stayed to take care of her mother, who was dependent on dialysis? What if, God forbid, Terri Schiavo had been there? Surely you could find some compassion for her.

When you're raised in a hurricane area, you're indoctrinated EVERYWHERE basic Civil Defense survival especially in the case of a hurricane. That includes stocking at least 2 weeks food.

Lot of good that 2 weeks of food does you when you're trapped in your attic and the water's coming in. By then the food's either soaked in crud or floated away.

I don't know what is happening there right now

that much is obvious

but I do know that culture and the sense of entitlement the most raucous lot of the roit bunch are and they have proven that then need to be taken out because civil society doesn't want them.

I love how all the "real" Americans among us are the first to turn on their less fortunate countrymen when a disaster strikes.

Re:All I gotta say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you've never been destitute before.

These people are, for the most part, poor folks who had no means to escape town last Sunday when the warning went out. No car. No money to put themselves up in a motel outside of town. The rich white people got the hell out, leaving the poor behind to drown.

Look at the news reports. Most of the faces are black and poor. Instead of being able to escape this shitstorm, they had to resort to being crammed into the Superdome, enduring overflowing stinking toilets, stifling heat, and the goddamn roof ripping off during one of the worst hurricanes this country has ever seen. These people are tired, scared, recently homeless, and very desperate. I'm sure they'd rather be anyplace but the festering bowl of sewage that New Orleans has become in the last couple of days.

Don't you dare make the inference that all 50,000+ of these people are merely stubborn stalwarts or hooligans bent on raising a ruckus now that the rule of law has broken down. While I condemn the reported rapes and other assorted outbreaks of lawlessness (reports of which I'm sure are being overhyped as usual by a racist mainstream media), most of these people are just desperately poor people who are scared at the prospect of what will happen to them in the next 24-48 hours. Put your critical thinking cap on, buddy, it's not like everyone there has turned into a murderous rapist. If you believe that, you're as racist as those peddling that "information."

Re:All I gotta say is...

[MillionthMonkey]

Hate to push you off of your high horse, but how exactly are we to show compassion towards someone committing rape?

Of course you don't show compassion toward that person, considered in isolation.

And yet I have been reading many characterizations of this hurricane's victims as being all looters and rapists, who deserve no sympathy and who should be fired on from helicopters. As if everyone in the city had all gathered in the Superdome and voted for the raping to begin.

Some percentage of the population can't behave themselves even when there is rule of law. Eventually they end up in jail.

An additional percentage of the population will behave, because they don't want to go to jail. When anarchy breaks out, the rule of law is gone, and the cops have no gasoline, bullets, or effective authority, these are the people who run around raping and looting and causing trouble. If they were members of the first group they'd be in jail and you wouldn't see them. When the cops are able to do their jobs, they behave. You meet some of them every day and don't realize it.

Don't be tempted to characterize the entire population by the actions of this group when order breaks down. The media isn't helping, and is conflating them with the "good people" who lift items like toothpaste and bottled water, if they can justify taking it enough to satisfy their consciences. From a helicopter they all look the same.

But the latent troublemakers are just reflecting a facet of human nature- these people exist in all cultures. We saw the same thing happen in Baghdad two years ago, remember? Do you recall the puzzlement? Everyone wondering why are the Iraqis destroying their own country? Not all of them were- the ones that did were the ones that we noticed. Entire populations don't just all just get together and decide to misbehave. You, as an observer, need to be mindful of your own tendency to generalize. Especially now.

Re:All I gotta say is...

[fm6]

Also for understatement.

Re:All I gotta say is...

[ThePeices]

You are an absolute imbecile. NOT ALL VICTIMS ARE RAPING LOOTING MURDERING CRIMINALS. These are helpless suffering people, everyday people. Where is your compassion! These people are left without aid. Your own people for fuck sake. This is the biggest natural disaster to hit the US, and one of its biggest discraces. The rest of the world looks upon this all and are absolutely stunned that the government and people are doing squat to help. Why on earth isnt there a mass airlift to drop supplies to the hospitals and desperate people living in barbaric conditions. You send all these armed soldiers to shoot looters inseat. No supplies, no water, no food, nothing. Shame on you America.

Seems trivial...

[TimTheFoolMan]

...until you realize how many people are using blogs and other internet services as their only means of communication.

Tim

Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[BitGeek]

It was interesting to see in that blog that what I've heard elsewhere is confirmed: Police are doing much of the looting.

Its unfortunate that government sweeps in during disasters and starts making mandates that make things worse. Like prohibitions against price "gauging". What, they htink things get cheaper when the infrastructure is destroyed?

Gauging actually helps-- it brings in more supply to service that demand, and ultimately prices go down FASTER when the free market is allowed.

Here's an economists take on the issue:
Price Gauging saves lives: http://www.mises.org/story/1593
And another: http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers16.html

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[FireballX301]

Except that as far as I know from friends that were able to contact me, the cops are looting stuff like gun shops and food shops. Unlike the other looters that steal money (wtf is the point of money in New Orleans right now, eh), and non-critical supplies.

Also, you described the economic side of price gouging - fair enough. Now, IN THE MEANTIME, whilst the supplies are being shipped in, nobody can pay for their foodstuffs. They die. Congratulations.

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:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[Bios_Hakr]

He's not talking about food. Or maybe he is. In any event, here is an example:

A hurricane comes through. Houses are destroyed. People come in to rebuild knowing that they will get rich. Governor sets a price cap. Builders know that they can go elsewhere and get better profits with less hastle, so they leave.

The people who come into an area to rebuild need an economic incentive. If you want to remove that incentive, fine. But then you have to mandate that people rebuild regardless of their wishes.

Unless you are going to have government contracts to rebuild things, you can't remove free market incentives.

Now, things like food, clothing, tents should be provided, free of charge, by the government. No if's ands or buts. We spend millions to provide MREs to Africa/Asia; spending billions on our own people shouldn't be a problem.

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[badasscat]

It was interesting to see in that blog that what I've heard elsewhere is confirmed: Police are doing much of the looting.

Ok, let's be clear about this, because both your and the blog's statements are pretty inflammatory and not accurate.

In a declared emergency, the police are allowed and in fact in some cases even required to commandeer what they see fit to maintain order and public safety. That does include guns and food. This is not "looting". The store owners are all reimbursed by the city and state later.

This happens all the time, but the one instance I can remember that was pretty heavily publicized was during that bank robbery and shootout in Los Angeles a while back, where the police were so outgunned that they went to a gun store during the gunfight and picked it clean. This is part of their duty; they have the authority and responsibility to commandeer items required to do their job during a public emergency.

It's really no different than a firefighter breaking somebody's door down during a fire. I mean, are they breaking and entering? Do you have them arrested for tresspassing? Obviously not - they're doing what they need to do to get the job done, and they're legally allowed to do it.

I think it's actually pretty tasteless for this guy to write something like "who knows what their real motives are?"... I mean, these are the guys out there in the direct line of fire trying to protect and feed a whole lot of innocent people who haven't eaten or drunk anything in 3 or 4 days. They're getting shot at (and hit) by street thugs for no reason, and they're doing their best to restore order in a clear vacuum of leadership and without nearly enough manpower.

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[ErikZ]

The levy that broke WAS upgraded to withstand the cat4 hurricanes.

And the project to upgrade the levys has been going since 1965! This is not the federal governments fault. If the dam levy is so important to people in New Orleans, have them come up with the money to fix it themselves!

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[ErikZ]

Heartless bastard reporting for duty.

New Orleans has been sinking into the swamp for years. The city is essentially a hole in the ground, surrounded by water. You know why the cemetaries have above ground caskets? They're 15 feet below sea level. The hole fills up with water as fast as they can dig it.

If we rebuild, it *will* happen again. And then what? We pay to have it rebuilt again? If the city was next to an active volcano, would you be saying we should rebuild it?

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[protolith]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/36111 .html/

I do appreciate the need for police to commandeer supplies, food, weapons, ammo,etc.

But what does the cop 2/3 rds down the page need with a stack of DVDs? Thats a picture of police looting, plain and simple, sucks but cops are people too, they are fallable too, trying to pretend it doesn't happen or sweep it under the rug because of the risks cops make will do nothing to keep cops from looting in the future.

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."

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[randyest]

We spend millions to provide MREs to Africa/Asia; spending billions on our own people shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know that gouging is necessary to ensure a healthy profit and encourage rebuilding. I'm quite sure "getting rich" instantly is not necessary for construction projects to be worthwhile.

But I must emphasize your 1000x underestimation of US aid to Africa. Please note that we spend Billions in Africa (with a 'B') just to fight AIDS and that's not enough!: There remains today a huge gap between the estimated annual needs of $3-4 billion for HIV/AIDS and current annual expenditures.

Bush has refused to endorse Blair's plan to double aid to Africa from rich nations to $25 billion annually now and $50 billion each year starting in 2015.

The White House has not decided how much more direct assistance to Africa it will offer at the G8 summit. The United States provides $3.2 billion in aid and much more through Bush's AIDS program, which calls for $3 billion a year to be spent combating the deadly disease, of which about 80 percent is expected to go to Africa. About half of the $5 billion Bush has promised from the Millennium Fund, which provides financial assistance to governments that commit to democratic and economic reforms, will go to Africa.

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.

Re:Police doing the looting...Government SNAFU

[gl4ss]

it's not about "appreaciting" culture or history. it's ABOUT THE FACT THAT IT'S NOT ON A GOOD PLACE. the place is not a good place to decide to build a big city on. it's an expensive risk to build the city there again, a risk that doesn't have much point.

"done right" would be to raise it from being under the sea level.. and would cost obscene amounts of money and not really have any point in it.

you think that's it's smart to build on a land that you _know_ is under the sea level and that you _know_ will face a major disaster easier than a town that's built 50km from it? you think that all places on earth are on the same risk level? that's just stupid. as stupid as taking unnecessary risks just to converse something you could converse at the NEW PLACE just as well. a community is not about the buildings or where the buildings are but about the people who live in them.

Brilliant! They keep the servers up ...

[rahlquist]

They keep em up through a hurricane, flooding, riots and the /. editors decide to take the servers down themselves...

If only the federal, state, and local governments

[Petrox]

...were so diligent. Seriously, the madness and 'Lord of the Flies' atmosphere that has taken place in my home city of New Orleans with no food, no water, no communication, and no signs of help are heartbreaking and a true tragedy. The loss is immense and our government has failed us--this is the United States and we needed to do better for our own.

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..

Re:Mirror of his blog

[Guspaz]

His blog is hosted by LiveJournal. I find it highly unlikely that LiveJournal can be slashdotted considering it's enormity. Mirroring LiveJournal seems a bit silly, it is like mirroring slashdot if boingboing were to link to it, it is pointless.

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

Just remember

[mnemonic_]

Your worst team meeting, software development project or vacation gone wrong is 1/1,000,000 as complex as what the relief personnel are handling. You may have been thwarted by snow on the road, delayed flights, crashing computers, lost data, wrong cellphone numbers or ill coworkers; these guys are dealing with non-existant roads, riots, gun shots, power loss and starvation. This is spread across 50,000 square miles of cities turned lakes. None of us can possibly fathom the details evacuating 60,000 people must be, tending to their transportation and health through an almost literal warzone.

We may know it's complex, but unless we're intimitely involved we cannot accurately critique the relief efforts. It'd be comparable to Brian Williams analyzing the Linux kernel structure, or attempting to explain fighter tactics. Without first-hand knowledge, opinions on sophisticated matters are worthless. As slashdotters who regularly tear apart the mass media on technical inaccuracies, we all should know this well

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-unification site

[EMIce]

How about some slashdotters set up a database driven site where people can register to be found and find others? They could list their employer, address, any significant information. I don't have the resources to do this but would be glad to help in throwing together some php and sql if given some server space.

Re:Re-unification site

[ntsucks]

http://findkatrina.com/
http://www.fullcircle.net/

Bodies Float -- Bush Smiling, Playing Guitar

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

Here is what Bush did right after his grave speech about how difficult this time would be. This was just yesterday when people were dying. You can see the Presidential Seal on the guitar he's smiling and playing, which apparently was supplied by the US Department of Irony:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/gu itar-710427.jpg

Pictures of bodies floating by are currently on the front page of the New York Times.

I posted the following quote on the previous article, with no conclusions, but it was modded down by people who dislike facts they disagree with. Additionally there's more information now and I am posting a link to the original article from editor and publisher:

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, in the Times-Picayune

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313 The above article also details what cuts were done by Bush to the SELA grants (for levees in New Orleans), which, by the way, were started and funded in 1995.

Additionally it appears that Louisiana should have been "high on the list of FEMA's biggest disaster mitigation grant program" but received nothing. Here's the article that states this: http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-2 8/cover_story2.html Now, as before, mod this post into oblivion so that you don't have to see Bush smiling and playing the guitar yesterday while bodies float around. I'm not sure what disgusts me more -- him doing that, or people closing their eyes to truth.

Re:Bodies Float -- Bush Smiling, Playing Guitar

[Ingolfke]

Additionally it appears that Louisiana should have been "high on the list of FEMA's biggest disaster mitigation grant program" but received nothing. Here's the article that states this: http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-2 8/cover_story2.html

The article states that the reason Jefferson Parish' potentially high ranking was because it has a disproportionate number of "repetitive loss structures." Those are structures that have suffered flood damage two or more times over a 10-year period and the cost to repair the structure equals or exceeds 25 percent of its market value. This means that the issue being discussed in the article was general flooding due to rain and rising rivers, not levee breaks. Specifically they are talking about areas that have been flooded 2 or more times... which indicates a flood prone area (no surprise considering it's on the delta and below sea level in some places). My point is this article has nothing to do with the levee disaster.

At the end of the article we find this statement:

One possible reason for the non-selection, Rodrigue hypothesizes, was that early in 2004, FEMA auditors discovered that a private consultant hired by the state to administer FEMA money had misallocated funds in Slidell, Mandeville and other places in St. Tammany Parish. "I think it was connected to the fact that there was an ongoing investigation," Rodrigue says, although he noted that other parishes, including Jefferson, were audited by both FEMA and the state during the investigation and came out clean.

So the alleged city government corruption that we've heard about seems to have caused some problems w/ New Orleans getting money. Which it should have... if the local government was improperly allocating the funds we should not continue to give them money until the issue can be properly investigated and we can ensure they are using the funds correctly. Point is, the local government seemed to contribute to their own inability to get the funds... again this is irrelevent because the agument for them to get the money in first place had to do w/ basic flooding, not levee breaks.

The first article... is troubling. I read it and I'm left wondering if money would have solved the problem or not. What would the impact of the proposed projects truly have been? Do we know (considering they wanted to do a 4 year study to even determine how to protect New Orleans)? When would the projects have been completed? Does raising levees really solve the problem. I'm not a structural engineer but I would expect that the point of raising levees is to withstand higher water levels... not keep the levees from breaking Why did we know about this since the 1960s, and then only start acting when 6 people died in a flood in 1995? It is troubling though.

It makes me wonder about why we even let the federal government pay for this kind of stuff? I mean... why shouldn't we reduce federal taxes in order to allow states to raise their taxes as needed to fund the projects that are important to the states? People would have far more control over how the money was spent b/c it would be their local politicians they were dealing with and corruption may be held in check better than it is now because people would care if every dollar wasted was a dollar they paid out in taxes (as opposed to the current system where taxes are paid by all 50 states and dispersed out in projects to the various states).

Anyways, the articles are interesting, the picture is a lame argument (too easily forged, show me real dated proof, and a presidential schedule... and at best all it is says is the President is disengenous... doesn't mean he's doing a bad job).

Re:Data Link Source

[Nerd Systems]

Well, I can understand having fiber to his location... yet fiber still needs a repeater every so often, to keep the signal going... I wonder where his connection is coming from, that his fiber or whatever he is using, still has power, when everything else in the surrounding area is down at this time. I would call this a SUPERB datacenter, able to withstand a Category Hurricane, Flooding, Lawlessness, and everything else, and still keeps going. Donny, if you are reading this, please give us a background of your data center setup, such as connection types and what not.

More info can be found here

[Boap]

You can hear more streams and check out more info here http://wiki.nola-intel.org/index.php/Main_Page

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.

You're an idiot...

[benjamindees]

Merchandise sitting on shelves (and gas sitting in storage tanks!) does not magically cost the business 3x more.

No, but the merchandise they have to buy to replace that merchandise does.

If a business can't make enough on the merchandise on their shelves to purchase replacements, they go out of business.

Price controls are counter-productive.

Is anyone else here concerned...

[Anonymous Coward]

About the fact that this was a relatively minor disaster that was experienced and this was how an entire country, the (arguably) richest in the world both in terms of economy and innovation was able to deal with it?

What if we had a larger disaster on our hands such as price/rarity of gas skyrocketing to the point where farmed goods can no longer be delivered in quantity to major metropolitain areas?

As far as the crime situation goes, I can "understand" the looting and mugging, but why the raping? What racial/moral justification is there for that?

I dropped my donation off at the Red Cross for a lack of anything better to do in order to help. My respect goes out to the people risking their ass to get aid to that place.

Maybe I sound tin foil hattish but prior to this hurricane footage, all i was really expecting to see post-hurricane was generic flood photos and cheesy clips of people grabbing TVs from shop windows, not stories of cops siphoning gas from cars for their patrol vehicles and stealing ammo from stores before other people do while "rape gangs" walk around.

Truly a sad day for the human race. Maybe we'll look back on how *we* behaved when we look at other countries and remark about how "uncivilized" they are in the future.

Re:Gouging, et al

[keraneuology]

Merchandise sitting on shelves (and gas sitting in storage tanks!) does not magically cost the business 3x more. Price gouging is illegal for a good reason.

Let's pretend that I own a gas station with a 10,000 gallons of capacity in my underground tanks.

• Monday morning, purchase 10,000 gallons of regular unleaded at $1/gallon and pay $10,000. I sell gas at $1.25/gallon to cover overhead, driveoffs, and keep about 2 cents/gallon profit.
• Tuesday sees an earthquake take out one of the only two refineries that supplies my area and my wholesaler announces that because of the shortage he will charge $2.50/gallon starting immediately
• Check the tanks... I have 8,000 gallons left. A line starts to form because the local news station has announced that there will be a gas shortage and prices will spike.

  Decision time.

  Option one:

  I keep the price of my gas at $1.25 until I run out. I lose no money because that gas is already bought and paid for. At the bottom of my tank I find that I have raked in $12,500 - before paying any other expenses such as insurance, electricity, employee salaries and benefits, taxes and so on. Figuring my two cent/gallon profit I have earned $200 for myself.

  But wait! I now need to replace 10,000 gallons of gas which will now cost me $25,000. Even assuming I had free utilities, labor and overhead my last storage tank fillup would only allow me to buy 5,000 gallons of gas. A couple more price hikes and I'll be out of business and nobody will be able to buy gas from me because I'll be closed.

  Option two:

  I jack the prices up to match what I expect my next delivery will cost so I can keep the tanks full and stay in business. Unfortunately, no matter what I charge I'll never make more than two cents/gallon profit - and that doesn't count all of the people who feel entitled to rip me off because I'm "gouging". Or don't come in and buy my fountain drinks and candy bars which is where 80% of my profits come from.

  Yes, I could refrain from "gouging" but a quick failure of the business is a definite certainty.

  Anti-gouging laws are one of the sillier things ever supplied by pandering politicians to stupid, demanding citizens. During normal times I can charge $15,000 for a generator and nobody will care because they'll go to Home Depot and buy one for $700. I would be in violation of the law but nobody would care because nobody wants to buy generators. But when the disaster strikes and everybody sells out of $700 generators (which are covered with dust because they sat on the shelves for 2 1/2 years because nobody thought that the designation "hurricane zone" actually meant something") and they see my stock of $15,000 generators (covered in dust because in 10 years nobody except the government wanted to buy my generators at a price so far above market) and I would be the greatest villian in the history of mankind, even if I -lowered- my price from $15,000 to $14,000.

  When the supply can't reach where the demand is, then what?

  Then you have a shortage. In times of normalcy 100 people are willing to buy a generator at $700 and everybody who wants one gets one. In time of natural disaster 50,000 people want a generator at $700 and 49,999 people are SOL because the first person in line buys all of them then sells all 100 out of the back of his truck for $2,000 each. Just because the government says that generators are only worth $700 doesn't mean that that is what they will be sold for.

  The free market is not our savior.

  No, but it is what prevents our economy from looking like Cuba (no food is available), Russia (no heating fuel is available) or Canada (9 months of waiting for a mammogram).

I am disapointed

[bogaboga]

As an American, I am disappointed and ashamed by what Katrina has exposed. Katrina has shown that America is no different or is even worse than a banana republic when it comes to disasters. One can hardly believe that the scenes exposed in New Orleans are on American soil.

This is why I think we need to take a deeper look at ourselves:

1: We knew Katrina was coming...

2: We knew it was big...really huge and as such, the damage would be enormous...

3: We knew that some residents would not beat the time required to vacate Louisiana, may be because of complacency or the traffic mess...

4: We had numbers of those who had managed to escape. We even knew where they were to be found...

5: We even knew the geography of New Orleans, so we could know where to go and how to get there...

6: We knew much more via satellites...since we take ourselves as being the most advanced country on earth...!

But...

1: There was 100% chaos in Louisiana...

2: ...because we seem to have been caught off guard...!

3: Dead bodies lying on the streets?

4: Desperate people walking in s**t?

5: Looting as if this is Somalia?

6: Despite all this, we have politicians ranting up their rhetoric...heck...folks are dying...all you hear is "we are doing all we can..." And this is AMERICA the great? Can some one tell me how a similar catastrophe would be any different in a third world country?

Re:first

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that emotion. You wanna loot food after two days with no food or power? Fine. You wanna loot a plasma TV while babies are dying in the streets because of destroyed infrastructure? Two in the head. The Guard / Feds / Army should all roll in there with kid gloves on, whip out some bullhorns, and give the populace exactly one chance to rally together and start saving some fucking lives. After that, any armed civilians should be given one warning to disarm and pick up a shovel. They say no? Two in the head. Refuse to dig in and help? Two in the ass. Take a shot at the Guard or a rescue chopper? Two in the gut and let them roll around in water that's been filtered through a few hundred dead bodies. Infection and the sun will take them in a day or so, and they'll suffer like they deserve.

Oh, and the fuckers roaming the Dome and raping girls in dark corners? Two in the thighs to shatter bones, one in the gut to promote pain and infection, and a gun butt to the face while they're still conscious, just to let them know why they're being removed from the gene pool.

This is America, but if you want to act like it's Haiti then we'll play by Haiti rules.

(And for all you internet "anarchists" out there, I hope you're on the next bus to NOLA. This is what you wanted, right? They'll just looooooove to see you.)

Re:Chaos too harsh a word

[rubycodez]

thugs are thugs with or without guns. the same for rapists, if this happened a thousand years ago they'd be using swords, knives, spears and bows. decent people with guns or any other weapon aren't going to rape girls or kill police or steal generators from barely functioning hospitals. this whole thing only shows me why it's wise to keep weapons, but also to be absolutely responsible and rational with their possession and use. My having a gun or a knife is not a threat to any good person and not a threat to police.

Re:Chaos too harsh a word

[IgnoramusMaximus]

In a libertarian society, there would be massive amounts of aid there.

Sir, you have your ideologies mixed up. As far as I know, as per Ayn Rand, "altruism is a folly". Ergo, in a Libertarian society, following the sacred rules, there would be no aid. You see, all those poeple down there brought that disaster onto themselves by being ... I guess black, poor or the combination of thereof. Or something.

On the other hand, it is us, the "bleeding heart" pinko-commie libruls, who are evilly ploting to do those treasonous "social safety net" and "disaster relief" things. Which seems to work for us here in Canada, as the 1997 flood experience showed, but hey, we are all beavers up here anyhow, so thats probably why, eh?

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:first

[Progman2000]

From what I've been told while in Haiti, they wouldn't be quite so generous. :)

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a pair of AC-130's on "looter patrol". Once word gets around that TV's and 105mm holes are closely related, I'm sure the deadbeats will find something more productive to occupy their time.

Give him a break!

[roystgnr]

Do you know how hard it is to find a fiddle on such short notice?

Old News - More Current References

[rm3friskerFTN]

Some historical background - "everyone" knew the hurricane with New Orleans written on it was coming:

October 2004 National Geographic Article about New Orleans getting whacked ... btw this site has been Drudged as opposed to Slashdot'd

October 2001 Scientific American article about New Orleans getting whacked

Informed discussion over at Belmont Club Blog

An obscure blog describes the hurricane's impact on YOU in Anywhere USA before the hurrican ever made landfall:

Most people have never heard of Port Fourchon, but it is the nation's premiere oil and gas support services facility--and right now it lies within 12 miles of Hurricane Katrina's CAT-3 or CAT-4 bullseye. Over 600 platforms and 75% of the Gulf's deepwater projects lie within a 40-mile radius of Port Fourchon. Unfortunately, Port Fourchon is a Louisiana island. An island that is connected to the mainland by a single two lane bridge...an old, single two lane bridge. This bridge is the only means of getting cargo and supplies to the Port. More than 1,000 cargo trucks go across this bridge each day, delivering materials to the Port for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) drilling rigs. If there's no bridge, there're no drilling parts and supplies.

Perhaps this all means we can look forward to the next MikeMoore film proving that the "Bush Hitler Haliburton Rove Puppet Yale C Student Same As John Kerry" caused the hurricane.

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

[afidel]

Yeah, on Sat when they were predicting a possible direct Category 5 strike directly on New Orleans I would have assumed that the federal government would be mobilizing the troops (literally and figurativly). For instance we sent in ships to act as desalination plants in the wake of the tsunami last winter but it took till 3 days after the hurricane for the aircraft carrier to leave New York. IMHO it should have been stationed at a southern port along the Atlantic ready to raise anchor as soon as the danger had passed. Taking over half the time that it takes for people to die of thirst to even freaking start heading towards them is just assanine! I think the scariest thing about this whole thing is that it shows how absolutly uprepared we are as a nation even after we have plowed billions and billions into disaster preperation under the banner of homeland security. If we can't deal with a natural disaster how can we possibly deal with the worst that a well funded and intelligent group of humans can do?

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!

Mirror of pictures from DirectNIC & sigmund.bi

[kingradar]

Several hundred megabytes of pictures from sigmund.biz, taken in the disaster zone by Mike and his team at DirectNIC have been mirrored to:

http://www.nerdshack.com/katrina/

/. away. Sits atop four GigE, and a load balanced www cluster. If anyone else needs a mirror of Katrina content, let us know.

Homeland Security turns out to be incompetent

[Animats]

This is the first big test for the Department of Homeland Security. They flunked. With $80 billion a year going into "homeland security", it turns out that, three days after the event, DHS can't even get enough security troops into New Orleans to secure the hospitals, the convention center, and the Superdome. DHS secretary Chertoff has no clue; when interviewed, it was clear he knew less than the average CNN viewer.

Disaster stockpiles don't seem to have been in place in New Orleans, even for the cheap stuff. A shipping container of water purification tablets would have been a huge help. Nobody seems to have thought to equip the Superdome, the designated disaster assembly point, with some basic water purification gear.

Congress and the voters need to ask some hard questions about where all that money goes and whether it's being spent properly.

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

[Panaflex]

You deserve a real big smack man..

1. These people, if they were able, probably DID put aside food and water. Which is now trapped under 9-20 feet of water in their houses.

2. There is only 1 road out of New orleans right now, and it's DANGEROUS to walk around. It's also on the opposite side of the most affected parts of the city. Put another way.. would you stroll through this with your kids? I'd wait for an escort with guns, thank you.

3. It is essential to get people moved out within 48-72 hours of a disaster. After that, the shock of loosing everything you own wears out and you go into survival mode.

3. These buses are driving right past thousands of people. Today was the first day that any serious evacuation was happening.

I'm not excusing the behaviour of NOLA people - but I understand it. There's looting, rape and murder happening - at the shelters. 60% of the NOLA police force quite because there's no command/control.

Most people got clean WATER for the first time since Monday. Even at the Superdome.

If I were FEMA last Tuesday:
1. Get school busses and get accessible people out now. Sort them somewhere else and reduce the need to ship in food. There should be armed escorts getting these people out. They should be swathing the city eastward so they can make effective use of the manpower instead of diluting it.

2. Evacuate all hospitals. Call in every ambulance you can and fly them out of Baton Rouge.

3. Air-drop food and water all over the city. Hell, have the coast guard drop food around as they're going to rescue survivors. It took 4 days to get those "tons and tons" into the city.

They didn't do that. Instead they:
1. Advised everyone to gather at central locations.. and instantly had supply issues because there's only one friggin road into town.

2. They thought they could fix a 500' levee of MOVING water in 24 hours. Huh?

3. The advised people to evacuate, but didn't coordinate escorts with the National Guard they had.

4. The police were overwhelmed. Many of them didn't even hear that they were under martial law! The city government left town leaving people with no knowledge of the city to coordinate the effort.

It's just totally wrong. Even an 8 year old could figure it out. If you've got limited access you're not going to be able to provide needed services.

FEMA gets billions of dollars to figure this out and completely botched it. Now they're complaining that people are shooting at them, which is wrong, but these people are mentally in survivor mode and if you don't have food or water then you don't matter.

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

[revscat]

Then, why, WHY have they chosen to give birth to, and raise kids while living below sea level in the path of recurring hurricanes that happen every year like clockwork? Every year? When was the last time a hurricane hit New Orleans? When was the last time ANYTHING like this happened?

But fuck, keep blaming the victims. Don't you feel better about yourself now? You're so smart. So good. Why, tragedy beyond your wildest expectations or control would NEVER happen to you.

People are DEAD. People are being RAPED. There are infants dying in the fucking streets and your focus is on blaming them, their parents. For all you know their parents DID stock up. But guess what? Their houses are now under nine feet of water. It is the government's JOB to maintain law and order, and they.. have.. FAILED.

Getting People Out vs Sending Aid In

[KidSock]

This is a little OT but I don't understand why officials are trying to send aid INTO the city as opposed to getting PEOPLE OUT. The whole place is a biohazard and must be completely evacuated minus engineers and health officials. If they do not do this perfectly healthy people are going to start dying in droves. They should be putting people on anything with wheels and sending them tent cities 20 miles out of town. I've heard nothing along these lines in the media. Can someone exaplain that to me?

"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

[Goldsmith]

They got people to gather in centralized locations so that they could more effectively distribute aid. You want aid dropped randomly around the city so that these tired, half-drowned people have to swim a few blocks to get it?

It was not a perfect plan, obviously things could have been done much better. Before the hurricane, the city should have been more forceful in getting people to leave, as that was their best opportunity to get people out of the city. In hindsight there's always improvements to be made. Why don't we criticize the founders of the city for putting it in a place with restricted land access and a vulnerability to flooding?

It's rediculous to suggest that shooting at doctors and police during such an emergency is in any way justified. Just two years removed from being consumed in riots, Los Angeles somehow managed NOT to erupt in violence after the Northridge earthquake. I don't remember any shooting in San Diego when it was on fire last summer.

You deserve a good smack yourself for suggesting that these people who are risking their lives to try and help somehow deserve the violence they're facing.

Not enough people are helping, and those that do help are to blame for the problems? Absurd!

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.

Which is more merciless?

[Hosiah]

The hurricane or the United States' response to it?

I can't make up my mind. First I hear about National Guardsmen given "shoot to kill" orders, Bush asking for a paltry 10 billion in aid (as opposed to 80 billion for Iraq this year - I guess a New Orleans citizen is worth 1/8th of an Iraqi citizen?), helicopters dropping sandbags instead of food, and Bush and congress were all on vacation when this went down. And now I come on Slashdot and read people saying, in effect, that because they didn't clear out of town when they were told, it's all their own damn fault?

Remember, 1 out of 3 New Orleans citizens live at or below poverty level. What can you do when you have no car? How can you hear a warning if you don't have a TV set or radio? How can you evacuate when you're told to go to a convention center and wait for a bus that never shows up?

The storm was devestating. The response and aftermath are sickening.