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."

Comments

Re:Congress: STFU.

[ad0gg]

I'm confused. You say Congress STFU and then mention fema which is under the executive branch.

Re:Congress: STFU.

[westlake]

It's pretty pathetic that Wal-Mart did more to help the victims of Katrina than the US FEMA did, in the terms of cash and donated goods.

"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

Re:Congress: STFU.

[bmo]

"I have chosen to live in ... Arizona" ...

"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/featu re1.html

STFU, really.

--
BMO

Re:Dependency on Google

[segfaultcoredump]

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.