The folks over at DirectNIC are having a pretty rough time of things right now, what with being headquartered in New Orleans. Amazingly, they’ve kept their ISP services up and running this whole time, with their staff having to not only cope with the expected stresses of a massive catastrophe but also working guard duty to deter looters and a withering tech-support load. One of the employees has been almost continuously updating his blog with observations about the situation both for their business and the city in general.

Security has become a major concern now, because the NOPD is ineffective and the looters
terrorists are roaming the streets. Word is now that they’re lighting
buildings on fire, but I can’t confirm that. Anyway, we have to run
guard shifts and patrol and it limits our downtime.

It is a
zoo out there though, make no mistake. It’s the wild kingdom. It’s Lord
of the Flies. That doesn’t mean there’s murder on every street corner.
But what it does mean is that the rule of law has collapsed, that there
is no order, and that property rights cannot and are not being
enforced. Anyone who is on the streets is in immediate danger of being
robbed and killed. It’s that bad.

It’s good to see some ordinary computer nerds keeping their heads under pressure and trying to hold things together.