Lawlessness (0 comments)
I spent a good bit of my afternoon reading the blog of a directNIC network admin. Along with a few other critical staff, he stayed in New Orleans through the hurricane. While it's professionally interesting to me to read about what it takes to keep a datacenter running in extreme conditions, the blog's transformed into a realtime account of what's really happening on the streets.
That part scares me.
Civilian survivors, realizing that the police force is horribly underpowered, have taken up arms. I'd expected looting, but not the reports of mobs of civilians trying to assert their newfound authority over traditional figures (police, national guard) by any means necessary. The reporter writing the blog is doing his best to get the word out that it'd be really nice for the army to come in and get things under control, but the major networks aren't reporting on any of the violence, just that rescue efforts aren't progressing as quickly as planned. perhaps it has something to do with the civilians shooting at the rescue workers?
[update, 8:09 PM] It looks like I was wrong in saying the big media channels were ignoring the violence. A bunch of stories reporting anarchy have shown up in the past few hours.