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."

Comments

However,

[whatthef*ck]

Unfortunately, post-Katrina images for only about half the city are available.

Re:However,

[peeon]

Digitalglobe has a larger image. http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orl eans_dwtn_aug31_05_dg.jpg

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[w98]

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).

Re:Cemeteries

[dillon_rinker]

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.

Re:google earth

[dschl]

It's been available on Google Earth since at least Sunday or Monday, from the Keyhole BBS. You had to download a file which gave you a layer showing a red dot at the centre of each satellite image, and when you clicked on the dot, it would then download each image separately for an approx 1 mile by 1 mile area. Google Earth also allowed you to see all of the images for other areas, including places like Gulfport and Biloxi. Complete devastation, nothing left but matchsticks.

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.

Re:Particularly... interesting

[Coneasfast]

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.

Re:How about finally acknowledging

[Trepalium]

Besides the fact your post is quite cold-hearted, New Orleans is hardly alone. Perhaps you know of a little city called Grand Forks that was severely damaged by the Red River flood of 1997. Or perhaps the cities sitting along the Mississippi river that got flooded by the flood of 1993 should've been left to rot? How about the earthquakes that always seem to rip LA apart?

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.

Re:Two interesting things

[Tyger]

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.

Re:Here are two levee breaches

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[The Evil Couch]

really? I could have sworn that refugee was derived from refuge. refugee meaning someone that's seeking or taking refuge.

Re:3901 Metropolitan Street, New Orleans, LA

[danheretic]

Snopes to the rescue again!

In particular:

Whether this photograph truly represents a lost opportunity to have evacuated a substantial number of New Orleans residents ahead of Hurricane Katrina is difficult to assess. Such a claim presumes an availability of resources (e.g., experienced drivers, fuel) and workable logistics (e.g., sufficient means of notifying and getting residents to departure points, sufficiently clear roads for multiple trips out of town and back) that may or may not have been present. (There's no guarantee that all the buses shown in this picture were even in working condition.) And, given the particular geography of New Orleans, any such evacuation would have had to have begun well in advance of Hurricane Katrina to avoid exposing residents to the potential danger of being stuck in buses on traffic-clogged roads in the path of an approaching hurricane. 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.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[damiam]

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.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[Low Key]

I just wish people would stop misusing the word refugee. These people are evacuees, not refugees. Take a look here.

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.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[swillden]

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.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[Angostura]

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.