Slashdot Mirror
Post-Katrina Images on Google Maps
breadiu writes " Satellite imagery of New Orleans taken on Wednesday, August 31st is now available on Google Maps. Enter 'New Orleans' in the search field at the top of the page, or drag and zoom the map to the area. A red 'Katrina' button will appear at the top right of the map, next to the existing map buttons. Older images for the area are still available too - click the "Satellite" button to switch to those."
Unfortunately, post-Katrina images for only about half the city are available.
The central parts of the city are still as before. Not much to see, move on...
My church is helping The Dream Center here in Los Angeles to house about 300 people relocated from New Orleans, give them job training (some of them will have jobs ready when they arrive).
my geeklog
One of my memories of the Great Flood of '93 is that cemeteries situated in the flood plain were inundated for weeks. Airtight coffins, lighter than the mud around them, floated to the surface and were washed away. Entire cemeteries were lost.
Also, Katrina images have been available on Google Maps since at least Saturday, as I was browsing it Sat afternoon. Kudos to Google - with that kind of speed, they should be running FEMA, too.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
According to the Google Blog you can get Google Earth overlays related to the hurricane here.
btw, to get rid of those location pointers (A, B, C, D, etc):
just clear the search field and press enter.
too bad google doesn't make this clear, would be nice to have a button to do that.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
I'm from the houston area, and there are thousands of refugees there. The church I go to there is a red cross center right now, and a few of the families there said they were leaving to california to find work, so I know some people are heading that way.
By your extremist views of, i guess it would be darwinian survival, we should not have medical care because it will weed out those who are too sick to continue populating this earth with healthy (e.g. rich) people.
Not only that, but you make it seem as the market will correct such natural disasters and such...
1) In economics, there are things that are out of the scope of expected inputs which lead to crazy outcomes, these are called externalities...some externalities would include terroist attacks, new revoulutionary technological processes, and um....yeah, natural disasters.
2) when externalities occur, there really should be some sort of market adjustment measures taken.
3) america does not exist, nor does anyplace else, in a "perfect" market economy where the market will make the proper adjustments and correct itself.
4) and shit, if republicans (or democrats) were so into the market economy and faith in it's power to correct itself, why do we have so many crappy lobby groups asking for protection, (a few examples in the south...textiles, agriculture, oil)
Then you go to quote the Bible?
I may not be a deeply religous person, but i don't think God/Jebus/Allah/whatever would share your views about giving a big ol' "fuck you" to poor people.
BTW nice rant...n.
1. Violent or extravagant speech or writing.
2. A speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence
Frankly, there aren't many places that are immune to natural disasters. I may not have to worry about hurricans, earthquakes or tsunamis where I live (Winnipeg, Manitoba), but I do have to worry about the occasional tornado, ice storms, flooding of the Red River, and blizzards. Life on this planet just isn't safe.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
1. I was reading a google maps API forum thread where someone suggested allowing better zoom so people could better identify houses there, the answer was that they would get to it, and apparently they have.
2. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say most the images they had to pay for, so they own rights to and responsibility to protect. However, the flood images were probably pieced together from freely downloadable NOAA images, so they have no such rights or responsability.
This should do it http://www.flashearth.com/ although you'll have to do your searches manually.
You beat me to it. For the sake of completeness, here's the third major levee breach.
Wow, the houses are deeply submerged here -- right to the edges of the roof.
Also in the US disaster preparedness and recovery are normally the venue of the States and localities. By tradition they are supposed to ask for aid.
They did, days before Katrina hit, Bush declared it a disaster, invoking the Stafford Act. At that point, the *National* Response Plan took effect and disaster management became federal responsibility, a "Incident of national Significance". That was 3 days *before* Katrina hit. A state of emergency was declared *before* Katrina hit. Martial law was declared shortly after. State and locals were asking for helping, the bush administration just wasn't listening.
The locals did well with what they had. New Orleans, a city of half a million people, was 80% evacuated in two days before Katrina hit, which is astounding and most of the those that were still there were given shelter from the storm.
Unfortunately, the cavalry from the feds didn't arrive in a timely fashion, despite repeated acknowledged requests for assistance.
really? I could have sworn that refugee was derived from refuge. refugee meaning someone that's seeking or taking refuge.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
There are overlays available. And instead of asking, why didn't you go to the Google Earth web site and find out for yourself? Then you could have told the rest of us.
I am not trying to be over critical, but they are not refugees. Everyone refers to them as such, so let me offer a dictionary defenition. refugee - One who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=refugees Wikipedia ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees
Snopes to the rescue again!
In particular:
It sure sounds to me like they're fleeing in search of refuge. The "as in" clause is providing examples, not limiting the definition to those factors only.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Even Snopes requires critical thinking when reading.
Such a claim presumes an availability of resources (e.g., experienced drivers, fuel)
Louisana had 25% of the nations fuel refinery capacity and driving a bus is a skill but most people that can drive shift can do in a pinch.
And, given the particular geography of New Orleans, any such evacuation would have had to have begun well in advance of Hurricane Katrina
When are you supposed to evacuate ? After, during, when people are coming back to the city ?
to avoid exposing residents to the potential danger of being stuck in buses on traffic-clogged roads in the path of an approaching hurricane
As opposed to being in a city that is up to 20ft below sea level in places and with an aticipated 28 ft storm surge coming in.
Moreover, any type of evacuation effort would have incurred a substantial outlay of funds from local and/or state governments -- while everyone agrees with the advantage of hindsight that would have been money well spent, many taxpayers might not have been left feeling so enthusiastic about footing the bill for an unnecessary evacuation had Hurricane Katrina not proved so damaging.
That last bit is just sad. The state had been pre-declared a disaster area. This means the local govt only had to pick up 20% of the tab. How much is a casualty worth ? And yes some of those taxpayers might not have been enthusiastic about the bill, how enthusiastic are they now ? At the very least the hospitals should have been evacuated so they would have more room available for the predicatable and predicted casualties from the storm.
Under international law, refugees are individuals who:
- are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence;
- have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and
- are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.
It bothers me a lot that people are casting a shadow over the true meaning of such a powerful word. While unfortunate, the people who left LA, MS, and AL are not refugees.I agree but your'e overlooking one thing. It was an emergency area before the storm came in. This enables the gov't to take emergency measures without the usual fear of legal shakedown.
On that same note marshall law could have been implemented after the city descended into chaos to restore order. My point is that the parasitism of the legal class is something that can and is set aside in times of crisis.
I thought that's why in areas like this, they buried people above ground in cement tombs. Prevents the tombs from floating away in a flood.
2. The new imagery doesn't have any obvious copyright notices. Did they skip this step or is there a new invisible watermark?
Because the images were taken by NOAA and are freely available on the National Weather Service Website, I think the images are in the public domain. In fact, from the same website where the original (and higher resolution) images can be found, I dug up this disclaimer:
The information on government servers are in the public domain, unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely by the public...
Portland, Oregon is apparently going to absorb 15,000 refugees in the near future. I've no idea what impact trying to cope with that sort of scale of influx is going to have.
They should send some of them to Utah. We're supposed to get around 2000 and so far we've gotten almost half of them. The state set up a 1-800 number people could call with offers of donations of money, food, clothing and housing. The hotline was running for just over 24 hours but has been shut down because they've been buried in offers. They've had to turn away nearly half of the volunteers who showed up at Camp Williams (Utah Army National Guard base where the evacuees are being house temporarily) because the volunteers outnumbered the evacuees and they had nothing for them to do.
Not only that, several hundred jobs have been offered, and over 1000 families have offered to provide 6-12 month "intermediate" housing, all in less than 24 hours since the request was announced. Utah only has 2.5 million people, but I think we can absorb far more than the 2000 that the US government has planned to send us.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Yes, but the definition of something under international law is not the same as the definition of a word.
At it's simplest a refugee is simply someone who has fled their home and is seeking refuge. There is - or should be - no stigma in being called a refugee.
More concise before / after pics can be found here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ne w-orleans-imagery.htm
Dude. They are people seeking refuge. Hence, refugees. Chill.
-b
myselfmusic
Ever since the 50s??? Brother, this didn't start in the 50s. This has been going on since the dawn of man. There's nothing American about it. Chalk it up to being human.
The Feds always take two or three days to show up, and five to seven days to reach full strength
then they should have been there on monday. bush declared a state of emergency several days before the hurricane hit, essentially putting the response under the responsibility of the executive branch (namely FEMA). even if the federal response takes a few days to ratchet up, then they still should have been there sunday or at the latest monday. the storm had passed by monday morning..
as for the local politicians belonging to the 'other party', i might remind you that nagin only became a dem 2 days before the mayoral primary, because he could win more votes as a dem. until then, he was GOP all the way.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!