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,

[daviqh]

Maybe the next half will be up tomorrow...and did you see the (I think) superdome. They weren't kidding when they said the roof was ripping off!

Cemeteries

[morcheeba]

A lot of my memories of visiting New Orleans included visiting the great cemeteries there. St Roch and St Vincent De Paul both look flooded. Obviously the living people in the city are more important, but the great landmarks still have a lot of meaning.

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.

Odd story about Katrina victims.

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

I work at a retail store in California, about 40 miles from Sacramento.

The other night, I had a couple come in, claiming to be from New Orleans, showing me an ID as evidence. They looked pretty poor and in dirty clothes, and the ID was correct.

They kept barraging me with questions asking for handouts... wanted a $100 tent for free, et cetera et cetera. I gave them the number to the local red cross chapter.

Has anyone else experienced refugees from the gulf coast in their area? What in the WORLD were they doing here.. no idea heh.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a pretty small college town in California (about 10 miles for Sacramento), and the University just accepted 300 transfers from University of Tulane...people are starting to spread out through the country.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[Tekgno]

Or used an old ID in order to capitalise on the sympathies of others.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[QuaZar666]

I myself am in Austin, and while we did get some of the people from New Orleans, we haven't gotten as much as Houston, or San Antonio has gotten. I am still waiting though for some of the homeless people here to carry signs saying that they lost everything due to the hurricane. Like I said hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure some of them will do.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[jd]

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.

Hey, I agree they need housing, support, etc, and I've no opposition to everyone doing what they can. But it sounds to me that the current plan of action is based more on looking good than doing good. Large population migrations of this kind impact everything from culture through to the economy. You can't just throw tens of thousands of people around the country and hope for the best.

(Well, you can. Germany did, when it unified. Damn near destroyed West Germany, with zero benefit to East Germans. Virtually all the problems in the Middle East are due to mass population migrations. In fact, virtually all long-term problems in history have been because of mass population migrations.)

The day it became obvious that Katrina was going to hit Category 5, work should have started on getting ready for an inevitable refugee crisis. They didn't, ok, so they should be working on long-term impact assessments NOW, and working on making sure that further harm isn't done.

Of course, they aren't. Right about now, they've bugger all idea of what the long-term consequences are. What about health consequences? I doubt the refugees have been checked in case of contageous diseases. I am pretty certain that people who left under their own steam, after it became obvious that rescue wasn't on the way, haven't been checked. The risk probably isn't great, but it's certainly not zero.

There are other risks. More than a few of these people will be armed, all of them will be suffering from PTSD, none of them are likely to have the money needed to get adequate support. That's a very high-risk combination, particularly as grudges may well be carried for the lack of support and the perception of abandonment. To make things worse, there WILL be resentment towards the refugees by other Americans, especially in areas where the "ideal" of absolute self-support is a religion. Violence seems certain.

After the draining, there'll be further stresses as refugees try to return home - or are pushed into doing so. Even after draining is complete, the entire region should be decontaminated and then checked for subsidance, prior to anyone trying to live there again. The reality is, that isn't going to happen. In turn, that means that there is a risk of death by disease or structural failure.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[sessamoid]

They had a very new van (rental looking) full of stuff, I mean full. A dog, cat, looked like everything they had...

Dude, it's California. Do you know how many "van people" I have parked outside my house that match that exact description with out of state plates? Lots of people seem to live out of their vehicles in California, b/c the weather's so good.

They had the cash to pay for the gas to get all the way to California in a van, and they want a free $100 tent? I don't buy the story, but then again I'm pretty cynical and jaded.

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: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.

Re:Odd story about Katrina victims.

[Zibblsnrt]

A lot of the objections to using the word "refugee" to describe the Katrina refugees seem to boil down to the idea that Americans can't be refugees, since refugees are those other people. It's pride, not grammar, which is at stake.

While I've seen some people with legitimate objections (even though I don't really buy the validity of a highly politically-motivated redefinition of a word which has been in use for a long time indeed), most of the complaints I've heard about the word really do boil down to that. It's not objection to the word; it's denial that it's being applied to us, something which feels like an insult when it really isn't anything more than a simple statement of fact.

-PS

Wow that's creepy

[TWX]

This is one of the creepiest things that I've seen in a long time. It reminds me of the before and after pictures from New York and similar stuff from coastline around the Indian Ocean.

Maybe such high resolution pictures of the disaster region will spur people into getting the authorities to do things like pay for the renovation of land features to reduce the effects of natural disasters, rather than divert the money to other projects, leaving victims high and dry (or in this case, low and wet).

Particularly... interesting

[mcc]

Superdome - before

Superdome - after

Re:Particularly... interesting

[irn_bru]

It's a shame that Google AdWords(TM) can't respond to a crisis as fast as George W. I really don't fancy a stay in the Holiday Inn Downtown at the moment, thank you very much...

Six Flags Under Water

[Anonymous Coward]

They're gonna kill me for the bandwidth this uses, but I managed to find a picture of Six Flags (a series of large theme parks for you non-USians, second only to Disney's stuff) after it was hit. It looks pretty disturbing to see rides halfway submerged.

Six Flags:
http://www.ecsis.net/~gregday/park.jpg

Park Map:
http://www.ecsis.net/~gregday/map.pdf

The rest of the NOAA aerial images taken from a Cessna:
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

But I warn you, it's very creepy.

Much better pictures

[Kredal]

can be found at NOAA's site, at http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

The pics were just taken off the plane and thrown on a server. North isn't always up, and the pictures aren't very well labeled. You pretty much have to know what you're looking for before you can make sense of the pictures. But they are much better quality than that of maps.google.com.

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.

Helpful views

[Durango_44]

The company I work for has two franchised, retail stores in the New Orleans area--one on the riverfront downtown, and another in the Metairie area, north of the main town. These satellite images have provided us with the first comfirmation of the damage, and are remarkably useful (in our case, the stores appear to be dry 48 hours after Katrina's passage). The executives were delighted to see this, and earned the IT group some nice brownie points... There is a similar link on the Denver Post site today. The images are from the same company, and for the same date and time, but are markedly different in color from the Google images. Does anybody know why?

How about finally acknowledging

[Shivetya]

that there are some places people should not live? Instead of throwing billions at a problem that will occur again it might be best to treat the city as we treated people along the Miss.

Move them.

While the mess in New Orleans is bad too many people are ignoring the devastation caused in Miss. and the surrounding areas.

The port area themselves are not affected as the city proper was. We can try to improve the wetlands. We can even hopefully undo the system underwhich the sediment of the Miss is forced into the sea instead of being used to rebuild the area naturally.

The real fact is, New Orleans has always been on borrowed time. I would prefer very much to spend the money to insure that the victims forever are high and dry.

Engineering, Environmental Approach

[toxic666]

For those interested in reading on geological hazards, check out Engineering Geology, An Environmental Approach:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0130 52770X/qid=1126049667/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/002-0778082-8548014?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Not intended as flamebait (I contributed $100 to the Red Cross), but people just refuse to learn to move away from flood-prone areas, even after they are destroyed.

The author survived the 1972 Rapid City flood in which 237 people were killed and adopted the philosophy of never rebuilding homes in the flood plain. Rapid City learned its lesson, and only commercial and industrial buildings are allowed in the flood plain. There are also a lot of parks and public use areas on the flood plain.

Yet, the monetary amount of damage done by floods increases with time as people continue to develop flood plains and barrier islands. Folks, flood control structures fail too often to justify their cost to the country's taxpayers. It is a shame thousands died in New Orleans and we will again fail to learn our lesson.

Convienently ignoring one major fact

[Shivetya]

The Federal Disaster Area declaration is nearly as large as the United Kingdom. How would you go about getting everything to everyone in a few days?

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. Supposedly, I cannot find the story right now, the LA Govenor asked Bush for some time before calling out the Guard. It is the State that "by tradition" orders the Guard, Bush respected that but sometimes I think traditions stink. There are 330,000 Guard members in the US currently. I would think more than a small percent could be moved provided the States will act.

Re:Convienently ignoring one major fact

[ScentCone]

Given that there was a few days notice of Katrina, there seems to be no excuse for the way in which it has been dealt with by the richest nation on the planet.

So, let's see. If this were something that happened to a less wealthy nation, what would have happened? In matter of some weeks, there would be some pale shadow of the amount of support that was moving into the Gulf Coast area within hours. There has been significant destruction over 90,000 square miles, with people cut off from utilities and communication throughout that area.

The National Guard has been been running non-stop relief flights and convoys into that entire area - and this is important, because those remote rural areas are the least able to connect to support. The people living in urban areas are easier to support, given their density, once you've got transportation lined up. That it only took from Tuesday until early Thursday for that to work, despite the huge problems, is actually pretty amazing. That doesn't sound so nice to the people that didn't get out of town, but it's worth mentioning that the town's mayor - who knows exactly where emergency support starts (locally) - explicitly told his local citizens that if they were to gather in the central stadium area, they were to bring their own food and water because there would be none immediately available.

the richest nation on the planet

Being the richest nation on the planet doesn't allow us to change the laws of physics (in terms of moving supplies, equipment, and people). But it's also worth talking about one of the key foundational aspects of US culture - and part of what allows the US economy to maintain its level of productivity and high employment. Specifically, the country has a long tradition of self sufficiency and localized culture. This extends all the way through how emergency services are planned (or not).

Had it been an unforseen terrorist attack, Dubwa would be blaming it all on terrorists

And, who would you blame for a terrorist attack, other than the terrorists that commit the attack? If you're in the "victims deserve the attacks they get" camp, then there's really no point continuing a discussion. Otherwise, that sort of leaves the attackers culpable. But since you're trying to draw some sort of connection between the aftermath of a colossal storm that impacted an area the size of many entire other countries, and think that somehow the president is in a position to stop it, or to tell the governer of Louisiana when and how to ask for help... well, you're missing the point. Come to think of it, why did the governor of Louisiana wait until Wednesday to authorize her state's guards to use private sector transportation to actually provide relief for her people? She'll have to answer to the local people that elected her. But I guarantee that if the federal government, in non-crisis circumstances, told the state governors that they were going to permanently muscle in and run the local preparation for things like storms, then there would be a huge mess, politically at the very least.

this just goes to show that the USA is too arrogant to defend itself against anything

Not quite sure how that follows - but I don't think, being a Brit, you're quite understanding the nature of a federal republic, or the strong powers (and responsibilities) that are given to the 50 states that make up the union. That has its strengths and weaknesses - and a state, like Louisiana, that is notorious for its local government corruption and weakness, is (quite literally, now, alas) stewing in its own juices. There are mechanisms in place for the federal government to displace the local governor's authority, but the constitution actually calls for findings of "insurrection" at the local level before we bypass the important responsibilities and powers that are reserved by the states.

You may or may not have noticed the substantial response that New York's

Re:It's had this for days

[commodoresloat]

Cool; I got here when I googled slashdot.

Here are two levee breaches

[Krellan]

Here are Google Maps links for two levee breaches.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+orleans&ll=30.01 7275,-90.121467&spn=0.002356,0.002879&t=e&hl=en

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+orleans&ll=29.97 2056,-90.023303&spn=0.009430,0.011517&t=e&hl=en

Once more into the... never mind!

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.

Scathing Editorial from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC

[squidsoup]

This is simply stunning - the most succinct and eloquant summation of the situation this far.

http://media.putfile.com/OlbermannSwings

From the opinion piece:

Most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection -- or at least amelioration -- against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Accusations of racism are ridiculous

[ccmay]

When predominantly white areas are affected by hurricanes, FEMA is much quicker to respond.

Got any proof of that, or are you just parroting the anti-Bush talking points?

The Feds always take two or three days to show up, and five to seven days to reach full strength. Local authorities are ALWAYS responsible for the first 72-96 hours of a disaster, that's how all the plans are made, and it's primarily because of the dithering incompetence of the local Democratic pols and the collapse of the New Orleans police department that so many people could not be rescued this time.

The military won't put people and equipment directly into the path of a hurricane, lest they become victims themselves and lose their airlift capability. But shortly after the storm passes, they pour in.

Military air, sea, and land operations began on Aug. 30, and in fact, there were more than twice as many soldiers on duty by day 5 of Katrina than on day 5 of Andrew in 1992. And that's after moving them in over a much larger area than Andrew affected. You can't wave a magic wand and move people and machines in an instant, but that seems to be what some of the ignorant anti-Bush ranters are expecting.

Unless you have invented a Star trek transporter beam, just can the ill-informed bitching and do what you can to help, OK?

-ccm