the katrina situation

I don't believe that I really had a true feel for the Katrina situation until I was synced up with an irc channel ( irc.deadjournal.com:6667 #interdictor and #scanner), a few live scanner feeds, and the live webcam feed of the armed bloggers holed up in a secured 27-floor building in New Orleans at 3 or 4am EST. Media fucking overload. The scanner audio, at least to me, was especially striking. Cops, state troopers, and SWAT teams were having a considerably difficult time sharing information. There was a soldier who was shot in the leg at the superdome, and the shooter perhaps became a corpse. Lots of reports of and queries about police escorted busses (one report of 500 of em) to and from the crises, plenty of 10-21s being readily given on the open airwaves (quite unusual), and talk of entities like "Dragon 6". It's really only in situations like this where you get these unique, surreal, and ultimately frightening OPEN MIC sessions from SWAT teams.