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Google Using Pre-Katrina Imagery on Google Maps
Thirdsin writes "CNN reports that images of lands devastated by Hurricane Katrina have been replaced on Google's map service with pre-Hurricane Katrina imagery. Now a subcommittee from The House Committee on Science and Technology has asked CEO Eric Schmidt for Google's motivation behind the
imagery switch. '[Congressional subcommittee chair Brad] Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery. "To use older, pre-Katrina imagery when more recent images are available without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest," Miller said.' It is worth pointing out that images from Google Earth have not been changed."
I'm running the Linux version of googleearth, 4.0.2091 (beta) and the image from New Orleans are clearly pre-Katrina, and are in fact the same images used by maps.google.com (the cars are all in the same places on the roads, for instance.)
Thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Well, the pre- images are unflooded. I don't think most of the area is still flooded (though a lot is pretty grim looking), so the flooded pictures that were up for so long, while fascinating, are probably even more inaccurate than the pre- images. Really, Google should find *recent* photos, and use neither the sensationalist flooded ones nor the pristine pre-flood ones.
I'm confused. You say Congress STFU and then mention fema which is under the executive branch.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
"Wal-Mart has given $17 million in cash, the largest corporate cash contribution to date, in addition to $3 million in products.
{USA Today] reports there are advantages to donating products instead of cash. The Internal Revenue Service allows a tax deduction greater than the products' costs..." Corporate Katrina gifts could top $1B September 13, 2005
FEMA provided about $6 billion dollars in aid directly to Katrina victims Katrina fraud cases
"I have chosen to live in ... Arizona" ...
u re1.html
"Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in disaster-prone areas?"
Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in areas that DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH WATER TO SUPPORT THE POPULATION except through federally funded water projects?
http://cals.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/janfeb07/feat
STFU, really.
--
BMO
A few notes... New Orleans is one of the first and largest port cities in America. The French put it there due to its convenient location between the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ponchitrain and the Mississippi river. Moving any of those large bodies of water is fairly difficult so the original economic reasoning still stands. New Orleans is also the largest inlet for the importation of natural gas which is widely used to generate electricity (ie. for people in places like Arizona) and that's another multi-billion dollar industry. Speaking of multi-billion dollar industries... one of the main reasons that Katrina was so destructive is because changes to the Mississippi delta for things like natural gas service channels and deep shoal shipping have caused massive areas of the Lousiana swamps to die out and arode. Who cares right? Well, when the swamp dies off it takes huge stands of trees with it and those present a huge physical break that slows down a storm heading inland. Think of a hurricane as a giant bowling ball and imagine the difference between rolling it down a bowling alley or across a thick lawn. Kill off the swamps and you have a nice smooth alley heading right up into New Orleans. So before you go blaming the victim you might want to think about what things like shipping channels and energy imports have done to a community like New Orleans. Since places like Arizona would probably never support a massive inland population without energy to run air-conditioners and well pumps you could have some degree of culpability in the situation. Oh, and don't call us if you find yourself in the middle of a 100-year level drought don't come crying to us... its your stupid fault for living in the desert... dumb ass.
Congratulations on completely missing your parent's point. It's really quite impressive.
I happen to work for a county and support our GIS group (along with a dozen other county departments)
Lots of the folks in the GIS group use google maps and google earth for quick and dirty stuff. We even use a google maps mashup on our main site for anything that requires a quick and dirty mapping application (voting locations, locations of sex offendors, etc)
That said, it is not a replacement for the GIS department, but it does help keep the size of the department in check. There are a few gotchas with the use of google:
1) Google earth is not free.
It is free for non-commercial use only. Everybody else has to pay.
2) The imagery is old
We do flyovers every two years minimum. The stuff on google is often 5+ years old for some parts of the county (the copyright date gets updated, but the images do not)
3) The data is not nearly as accurate
For quick and dirty work, google earth is ok. But we have had to work on areas where google only has 1m or worse. We have 6" resolution for the entire county. It is also been rectified and fixed and things like plot lines and street centerlines are dead on. I've played with image overlays before, and google can be 20+ ft off in one direction or another. That is simply not acceptable when you are trying to figure out where you are going to put a street.
4) Ever try and plot a 6' by 42" map using google earth at full resolution with plot line overlays and dozen of other custom features that the customer wants for a presentation? Didn't think so.
So, if all the gis department does is provide non-rectified 1 meter satellite photos from 10 years ago... yeah, time to ditch them and use google. For anything else, you are going to need a gis group.... It does not have to be large, but it better exist.
Why should we rebuild in the same shitty ass location.
I've often wondered the same thing. Why the hell are we rebuilding a city that is guaranteed to get flooded again in the next category 5 hurricane that hits it. The pumps and levees are only designed for a category 3 to begin with. I personally feel the LA should cut its losses and focus on NOT building there again.
I am not a hard-hearted person but I get tired of the outstretched hands still living in New Orleans and asking for more assistance. MUCH of the relief money has been proven to have been wasted as it is. The State and Local governments botched the whole disaster. The Federal government was lambasted despite responding with tremendous aid. And we want to go through all this drama again?
Abandon the damn city.
I gave money to the Tsunami victims but could not bring myself to give a dime to the Katrina affair. The "victims" in most cases (but not all) simply refused to leave with ample warning. Then took the opportunity to loot because we all know people can eat DVD players and other consumer electronics. Some of these people received more from government handouts than they ever had before the hurricane. Now the city is a haven for murderers. Please, please do not waste my tax dollars on that cesspool.
New Orleans will be under water again in the next 10 - 15 years. It is bound to occur.