bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Thursday, September 01, 2005 ::

'This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans Blog'
So explains the Interdictor, a Livejournal blogger who continues to run his blog from downtown New Orleans with a diesel generator at an Internet services company. "In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested."

Now, his accounts are harrowing, and fine examples of citizen journalism during a time of crisis. Here's an example, from Interdictor's 12:35 a.m. post today:
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.
He's trying to catch some sleep now, but he's also running on ICQ and has set up an IRC chat channel. He and some other brave souls have set up their own underground 24-hour news network, all because of the web.

Link via SciGuy

Katrina, New Orleans, citizen journalism

:: Andrew 07:25 + ::
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