New Orleans ISP stays operational/Fights Looting in the streets
With The big easy turning into a war zone, a downtown New Orleans ISP stays opertaional and fights crime in the street at the same time. DirecNIC has a photo gallery identifing looters and their vehicles, a live stream of the street outside their office, and a personal blog recounting the ordeal.
Here is a post from their blog:
Outpost Crystal's Police Officer
More from the Police Officer. I'm typing as fast as i can while he talks to us:
He's only hearing bits and pieces. The people in the city are shooting at the police. They're upset that they're not getting help quickly enough. The fireman keep calling because they're under fire. He doesn't understand why the people are shooting at the rescuers. Here it is 5 days ago the Mayor said get out of town and nobody went and now they're pissed.
The National Guard was at the Hilton, but now the Hilton is evacuated. When they said the CBD was gonna get 6 feet of water, it seems like everyone evacuated.
He turned the corner onto Canal Street and it looked like a flea market. People breaking into every store, going to the neutral gound (median) and trading and selling everything.
They broke into Winn Dixie Monday Night. Do they steal food? No. Cigarettes and liquor. Store was a mess. All the meats were going to waste so the districts went over there to salvage food for officers. Many cops have been eating MREs.
The Iberville Housing Projects got pissed off because the police started to "shop" after they kicked out looters. Then they started shooting at cops. When the cops left, the looters looted everything. There's probably not a grocery left in this city.
Over 30 officers have quit over the last 3 days. Out of 160 officers in his district maybe 55 or 60 are working. He hasn't seen several since Sunday. HQ is closed, evacuated. No phones to contact them.
"HQ, be advised, we're going 10 7."
"Ok, y'all coming back on???"
"We don't know."
More in a few.
______________________________
Press Release:
Intercosmos Media Group, Inc. wants to thank all of its directNIC.com customers for the overwhelming support and inquiries into our wellbeing.
We are based in New Orleans and located in a secure and dry skyscraper, where our datacenter has remained fully operational.
Our staff is safe and well -- some have been working around the clock in New Orleans to keep clients running smoothly, and other employees have left to safer locations to keep an eye on the network from afar.
We are pleased to announce that we haven't lost service once during this entire distaster, and we have three weeks of backup power secured, and more resources are on the way.
Additionally, backup options outside of New Orleans are being implemented as an added precaution.
Thank you for your support and know we are working hard to maintain our excellent services even during this castrophe.
Sincerely,
Sigmund J. Solares, J.D., M.B.A.
CEO
Intercosmos Media Group, Inc.
You can view pictures online here: http://sigmund.biz/kat/index.html
You can read the blog online here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/