Google Launches Hurricane Isaac Site

redletterdave writes "Google Crisis Response, one of Google's thousands of active projects that merges various Google tools like Maps, Docs, Forms and Earth, posted a new webpage on Monday dedicated to Tropical Storm Isaac — soon to be Hurricane Isaac — in an effort to disseminate helpful information about the hurricane's path, its forecasted track, and how local residents can stay safe during this emergency situation. Google's Crisis Map for Hurricane Isaac allows the user to set up and see public alerts from weather.gov, flood gauge forecasts, surge zones, evacuation zones and routes, barrier resources and relevant YouTube videos for each impacted area."

Comments

Actual Google site

[GSPride]

The actual Google Crisis site is:

http://google.org/crisismap/2012-tropical-system-isaac

Re:Actual Google site

[inKubus]

I'm a big fan of wunderground's Wundermap.

Intensity level

[SternisheFan]

Isaac should make landfall (at most) as a Category 2 hurricaine, according to info as of Monday 5 pm Eastern. 7 years ago Irene was a Category 5 before making landfall, and was downgraded to a Category 3 by the time it made land.

Re:Intensity level

[Anonymous Coward]

Intensity isn't everything. Location matters too. Isaac is weaker, sure, but it's expected to strengthen in the Gulf a little and the predicted path near landfall is surprisingly similar to that of Katrina, kind of on the east side of New Orleans or over the top. That's the worst situation for landfall in that area, because the counter-clockwise flow of the hurricane will tend to push the water up into Lake Pontchartrain on the north side of the city and up the canal system that connects the city to the ocean on the SE side. A Category 2 is not nearly as bad as the stronger hurricanes, but it's still bad depending upon timing with respect to tides and how long the rainfall lingers. The predictions for storm surge don't look too serious so far (look at the maps of "storm surge probabilities" and "storm surge exceedance" at the National Hurricane Center), but they're still looking at a 50% chance of exceeding a metre or so (looks like the max is 3-5 feet at the 50% confidence level). This *should* be inside the levee limits. The system *should* be able to handle that, but complicated systems have a habit of failing in inconvenient ways. Hopefully people are taking the evacuations seriously in the areas where it's been recommended.

Thanks for removing the link to Google CR site

[hsmith]

but retaining the link to the link to IBTimes.

Worthless.

http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/

Re:Thanks for removing the link to Google CR site

[sootman]

Slashdot has just about hit the point of "A common household item can kill you! We'll tell you which one, at 11."

"Google has created a potentially lifesaving website. Here's some guy's blog post about it."

Re:Like rock and roll

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Actually, it's kinda a logical extension of their original (somewhat overblown) mission of collecting as much data as possible, organizing it, and disseminating it as useful information to people. Lots of people have tried it (there was a disaster a few years ago where Wikipedia was used as an information store, as I remember) and it seems like a decent thing to do.

On top of that, Google is an advertising-based Internet startup that seems to have incongruously lasted 10 years longer than its expected lifespan. What part of, "Jump on every fad," doesn't fit into that?