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!

Particularly... interesting

[mcc]

Superdome - before

Superdome - after

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.

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?

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.

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.

[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.

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