Re: All their tools were down as well...
Everyone knows that picture of someone cutting a branch off a tree while sitting on it. On the wrong side of the cut, of course.
Looking at the BGP visualisation posted in the other article it looks very much like they ran an automated branch-cutting chainsaw over the entire tree leaving just a bare, smooth trunk, and requiring some network jockeys to first find climbing irons to get at the core gear halfway up.