Happy Catholic nods to "The Interdictor"

Julie D., the Happy Catholic, points out a "must-read blog" known as The Interdictor. After reviewing a sampler, I can see why:

7:01 pm
City Security
The city is starting to feel more secure now. Much larger military and Homeland Security presence and many fewer civilians left. Of course with this added security comes additional dangers like hyper-suspicious, armed authorities. If you watch the cam or walk the streets, you see that almost every civilian is approached, evaluated for threat potential, then either patted down or left alone. The disconcerting thing is that these authorities always have their guns at the ready and look like they're enjoying intimidating the people. Two of us have already had guns aimed at us by police -- Brian by the Federal Cops guarding the Boggs Federal building while we were waiting for the resupply, and me when we were delivering the router to City Hall.

Don't get me wrong, some guys are more professional than others. You can tell the ones who took the job because they wanted to bullies and who took the job to protect and serve. That's one thing a catastrophic situation does -- it sifts people's true personalities out.

Nevertheless, aside from the arson, I think that generally it's much safer today than yesterday.

Ok, now I've got some down time so I'll try to answer your IMs and hit the IRC chat.
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4:38 pm
Feed Being Tweaked
In the interests of allowing more viewing, I am cutting the feed bps. If you are mirroring, please post here with the link you will mirror from and send me your contact information so I can send you the port number. I will tweak the feed once 5 mirrors have replied.

Feed has been reset

Is it working?
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3:50 pm
Business Related Note
Brian brought back online a second OC3 connection and estimates the 3rd one will be back online within the hour. Any sites that were down will be coming on through the day into the night. We appreciate your patience during this continuing calamity.

Update: All free hosting is back up.
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2:01 pm
News
The Riverwalk may be on fire (shopping mall at the river at end of CBD/Quarter). Everytime we talk to the police, we hear about sniper fire at the fire scenes. I cannot confirm that there is any. This is all hearsay, but it's coming from the police. The police we talk to, while consistent about claiming there is sniper fire, are conflicted about whether it's police sniper fire trying to take out arsonists or criminal sniper fire trying to take out police and fire rescue teams. Again, this is rumor for now, but we're hearing a lot of this rumor.

Now this is something that requires tact, and I do not have much experience with reporting, but I think the world needs to know how overwhelmed the police are out here: I have reports from 3 different police sources that 2 police officers have committed suicide. Out of respect for their families, I will not name them or go into detail. Truly tragic how bad things are. I sincerely hope I did the right thing in reporting this.



The 3 guys you just saw on webcam are Jeff and Hank of Data Protection Services (one of our customers who swore to their customers that they would not go down because of this storm), and Doctor Tom, an anesthesiologist. These three men heroically found a way to deliver us fuel and supplies into this disaster zone. I say heroically, because the amount of effort it took them to coordinate a way to get a container and fuel and a route in to the city in the face of persistent danger on the streets was absolutely off the charts. Their customers need to know the lengths that these men went to in order to get the job done. I listened to their accounts and I was absolutely impressed by the initiative and resourcefulness of these guys. Their story will be forthcoming on my blog sometime in the coming weeks when this is all over. For now, I want to thank these men in front of the whole world for the service they just performed.
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11:58 am
Fuel Drop Successful
1515 got fuel. We're solid now. We will maintain internect connectivity.
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10:57 am
Latest
Ok, I'm out of the loop but trying to get info for you guys. What I do know is that we got fuel. There is fuel in the city for Telcove down the street, but the flooding is making things difficult and that they need National Guard approval -- but this is not confirmed. As of right now, I don't know if Telcove has been fueled or not.

So basically, you guys know as much as I do at this point. I will know soon what the status is.

Now for news about the city.

The police told my guys downstairs that Saks 5th Avenue is on fire. Another big fire somewhere else, near where the warehouse fire yesterday was.

Cam is still on.

I'm gonna grab a sandwich and a drink, and come right back.
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10:38 am
Nap Over
Did I miss anything? ;)
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7:15 am
Still waiting on the fuel truck that was supposed to be here at 0600 sharp.
45 minutes until Telcove is supposed to get their fuel from two different tankers.

I stayed up all night and now I'm gonna go to bed and see what I see when I get up. Hopefully when I wake up there will be good news.

Also, there are some insane and drunk homeless people on the street.
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3:44 am
Personality Types
There are basically 3 types of people: Optimists, Pessimists, and Realists. In a crisis situation, it can be difficult to tell the difference between the pessimists and the realists. I consider myself a realist. Brian, the guy who restored our VOIP outgoing phone and has been managing connectivity issues up here since this all began is an optimist.

When I pressed him for an answer, he told me that he honestly gives us a 75% chance of getting fuel to arrive down the street to our provider in time. I hope I was just being a pessimist earlier.

Anyway, we're supposed to get our truck here at 6am -- 2 hours and 10 minutes from now. It's been a long, rough day, so I'm gonna lie down for a few.

Oh yeah, and today is my dad's birthday. I hope he's still hanging tough in Harahan.

Wake me at 5:45.

Night, world.
Love you.
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12:52 am
Situation Critical
Well, people, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to have internet. Our last OC3 which is located down the street is going to run out of fuel sometime tomorrow according to the providers. They had a fuel drop scheduled for today and they didn't make it in. Now it's scheduled for tomorrow morning. Our fuel drop was a no-show also. We have fuel for several days, but if the provider goes down it's game over man. There's no reason to be here any longer at that point. Our primary mission will be over and this blog will not be able to be updated.

I don't have much hope for success given the track record we've had with the fuel. So basically what I'm saying is that sometime tomorrow (Saturday), I probably will no longer be able to update. I hope this doesn't come across as melodramtic -- I'm just giving it to you straight.

We fought off the hurricane, civil unrest, fire, fatigue, and pressure from everyone to bug out. What we can't do is run other people's generators with our sheer force of will. We need them to get their diesel.

This is where I thank all of you for your kindness, prayers, support, and help. I don't know how or why this all happened the way it did. But it did happen this way, and I've tried to shoulder the responsibilities the company and the readers of this blog placed on me, however unintentionally, with resolve and focus. Hopefully, the guys down the street will get their fuel. Hopefully this post will not be one of my last. Hopefully we'll be able to stay here and see this through to the end. Know that I am trying every feasible option to make this happen. It simply comes down to whether or not the scheduled drops get made tomorrow. If they do, I'll be here. If they don't, I'll be taking Crystal with me sometime this week to head out somewhere.

There's nothing more we can do from here. We need those trucks to show up down the street. That's all there is.

I guess I will spend the rest of my night til I crash in IRC with you guys and answering as many IMs as possible.

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