Calling himself “the Interdictor”, the blogger is holed up in an office from where he surveys the streets from webcams, listening in on police and National Guard radio traffic and occasionally setting out to gather more intelligence on the collapse of his city.

He calls his eyrie Outpost Crystal, after his Californian girlfriend, and writes an hourly blog:

• “They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use,” he writes of the New Orleans police department (NOPD). “They also have looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent criminals from doing so. But who knows their true intentions.” Reliable sources, he claims, have seen officers breaking into cash machines and safes.

  “We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people we’ve been talking to say they are not recognising the NOPD as a legitimate authority any more, since cops have been seen looting in Wal-Marts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Don’t shoot the messenger . . .”
  

• The Interdictor says his blog is “fighting for the preservation of civilisation against the barbarian hordes”. He does not reveal his identity, but claims that he provides “crisis management” for Intercosmos, a New Orleans media group.

  The National Guard hardly emerges with any more credit than the police. Its officers, he says, are just “shoving water off the backs of trucks. They’re just pushing it off without stopping, people don’t even know it’s there”.
  

• Sometimes the Interdictor’s grim mood is tempered by a change in the weather. “It’s raining now and I guess that’s a relief from the heat. It’s hot as hell down there in the sun. Crime is absolutely rampant: rapes, murders, rape-murder combinations.”

  With the police and army so hopelessly inadequate, he makes a direct appeal to President George W Bush. “Mr President, we are losing this city. I don’t care what you’re hearing on the news. The city is being lost. It is the law of the jungle down here. The command and control structure here is barely functioning. The hospitals are in dire straits. The police barely have any capabilities at this point. Please get the military here to maintain order before this city is lost.”
  

• His emotions spill over as the Interdictor reminds his audience that there will be a final reckoning. “One day it is going to be over, and people are going to have to live with themselves and the knowledge of how they behaved — the cowards, the thieves, the murderers.

  “We’re getting a guy on cam now, right now, stealing tyres from one car and putting them in his. What a bunch of monkeys. Like I said, one day this is going to be over, and I hope the shame overwhelms these bastards.”
  

• The Interdictor says he implies no racial slurs: “There are white people, black people and Hispanic people looting. It’s interesting to note that I see no Asians looting, but I’ll leave that observation to the sociologists to explain.

  “It is a zoo out there though, make no mistake. It’s the wild kingdom.”

  While suspicious of the NOPD, Interdictor has some friends in the force: “He’s only hearing bits and pieces,” he writes after talking to one officer.

  “The people in the city are shooting at the police. The firemen keep calling because they’re under fire. He doesn’t understand why the people are shooting at the rescuers. Here it is: five days ago the mayor said get out of town and nobody went, and now they’re pissed.”

  One policeman tells the Interdictor that his colleagues have simply disappeared. “Over 30 officers have quit over the last three 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.”
  

• When not roving over his system of webcams, the blogger is preparing fuel drops across the city. “I’ve been moving and dumping 55 gallon drums all day. It’s back-breaking work, but it’s a good thing I’ve got a strong back. I haven’t fooled with that much diesel since I was on shit-burning detail in the first Gulf war. Never been much of a garrison soldier. I was always a field soldier. So here at Outpost Crystal we’re set pretty good.”

  Even on his errands, the blogger feels as threatened by the “rescuers” as by the floods: “Bunch of stressed out, trigger-happy police and military types driving by suspicious as all hell. It’s not safe standing out on the street even if you look as though you belong here.”

  www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
  

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