The moment that Occupy Wall Street heard that Mayor Bloomberg was planning to “clean” Zuccotti Park, the mood among the protesters intensified.

They formed a group to clean the park themselves, and started forming plans to block the NYPD and cleaners from entering the park at 7 AM the next morning.

When we got there around 6 AM, there were easily 2,000 people crammed in the space, ready to “defend the park.” One speaker said, “they can’t arrest all of us.”

He had a point.

The protesters do feel like they’re winning, but not all of them knew what they would do if the police started trying to clear them out.

We finally caught up with a woman named Nanterri on the Occupy Wall Street legal team. She told us that if the NYPD tried to enter the park, the protesters would be instructed to link arms and form a human chain while trying get as close to the center of the park as possible. They would leave no spaces for the police to get through.

And then (via Twitter) they heard that the cleaning had been postponed.

You can’t imagine the energy.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-wall-street-protesters-get-to-stay-2011-10#ixzz1an1zWPUh