Google Goes Back to Pre-Katrina Maps

[w4rma]

Source: Associated Press

CAIN BURDEAU | March 29, 2007 10:05 PM EST

NEW ORLEANS — Google's popular map portal has replaced post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with pictures taken before the storm, leaving locals feeling like they're in a time loop and even fueling suspicions of a conspiracy.

Scroll across the city and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and everything is back to normal: Marinas are filled with boats, bridges are intact and parks are filled with healthy, full-bodied trees.

"Come on," said an incredulous Ruston Henry, president of the economic development association in New Orleans' devastated Lower 9th Ward. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google, don't pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine.'"

Chikai Ohazama, a Google Inc. product manager for satellite imagery, said the maps now available are the best the company can offer. Numerous factors decide what goes into the databases, "everything from resolution, to quality, to when the actual imagery was acquired."

…

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070329/katrina-google-maps

[wtmusic]

1. Ha! "Numerous factors"...I bet

Wouldn't want anyone to see what NO really looks like. What a disgrace.

[Javaman]

18. Yeah, payola...nt

[PDJane]

2. Is there anything

That big business, media and government won't do to keep the populace complaisant and uninformed?

It's gotten so that the most outrageous things leave me apalled but not the least surprised.

[daleo]

3. Winston Smith, meet Google. n/t

[Theduckno2]

6. Good one. It also reminds me of an old Joey Bishop joke.

It's the one where he says something like: "I've got a great doctor, he knows I am not wealthy so when I need an expensive treatment he touches up the X-rays.".

[silverweb]

4. Unbelievable.

I wonder just how much WH and/or GOP input was involved in these "numerous factors" mentioned....

[Behind the Aegis]

5. Are you sure about this?

Some of the areas are hard to see the level of devastation from the view allowed, but I just looked up several locations near my home, and I could see the problem areas, including a large FEMA trailer park. I will scroll around the 9th Ward and see what it there.

On edit: I apologize. I was using Mapquest's satellite pictures. I pulled up the Google version of the same location and sure as Hell, no FEMA trailers! No damaged buildings! No discontinued roadways! SHAMEFUL!

On second edit: The biggest give-away...NO BLUE ROOFS IN THE GOOGLE VERSION!

[merwin]

7. This is really unlike Google. They're usually go with the voice of the people,

and don't care for government involvement.

[Bonobo]

8. Very, very disturbing. Kick and recommended.

[sandnsea]

9. Google owns 5% of AOL/Time Warner

Bought it for a billion dollars of stock.

Google came in the back door and is quickly consolidating the internet in a way AOL could only dream of.

[annabanana]

10. k&r for a very disturbing development!! Does this mean that

every Chamber of Commerce will have input as to how the "would like" their community to appear in so-called pictures?

Perhaps they can "fix" that bombed out church in Japan too....

[Cooley Hurd]

11. Google Earth did the EXACT same thing with Fallujah...

For a time in 2004, you could see Fallujah, post invasion - the most telling sign was the soccer field (next to the largest cemetery in town) that was in the process of being converted into an auxillary cemetery because the main cemetery was filled up. I'll see if I can still find that imagery (I saved somewhere on my network)...

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. If you look at Fallujah today...

...it's split down the middle. The eastern half appears to be post-invasion, judging by the number of burn scars and rubble. The western half appears to be pre-invasion, juding by the lack of same.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Hmm...

First, Google was one of the first organizations to provide this data, free of charge, to anyone in the world who wanted it. It has been there since shortly after Katrina.

Second, this does not seem to be a case of google "going back" to the old image set. These images appear to be part of a much larger image set that has been recently integrated. This is not the "old" New Orleans image set that they were using prior to Katrina.

That said, I think they should replace the old photos. And they probably will if enough people bitch about it.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

13. Brief update.

Someone picked this up on the Keyhole (google earth community) BBS back at the beginning of march, but the thread dropped off the radar and nobody else has mentioned it. I'll try to revive the thread.

[wicket]

15. Pathetic

:eyes:

[pimpbot]

16. Google is a stooge for Dick Cheney and other scumbags

Go on google maps and look at the naval observatory, its all censored!

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=38.921473,-77.066946&spn=0.011269,0.019312&t=k&om=1


Not even the white house is blurred like this. What a wackjob. I have no clue why google would comply with such a demand to censor unless it was illegal.

Fortunately, the other mapping services haven't caved into Tricky Dick's demands:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=&city=&state=&zipcode=&country=&title=%3cspan%20style%3d%22margin%2dbottom%3a0px%3b%22%20class%3d%22adr%22%3e%3cb%20class%3d%22fn%20org%22%3eLatitude%3a%2038%2e921473%3cbr%3eLongitude%3a%20%2d77%2e066946%3c%2fb%3e%3cbr%20%2f%3e%20%20%3cspan%20style%3d%22display%3ainline%3bmargin%2dbottom%3a0px%3b%22%20class%3d%22country%2dname%22%3e%3c%2fspan%3e%3c%2fspan%3e&cid=lfmaplink2&name=&dtype=h

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. Google didn't do that.

The blurriness is in the dataset that Google bought. Google didn't add it.

This is the same image, from the image provider's website:

http://www.terraserver.com/imagery/image_usgs.asp?cpx=-77.06589625&cpy=38.92161911&usgs_res=13&provider_id=210&t=pan

[w4rma]

22. That's the information I was hoping someone would post TerraServer®.com provides the satelite images

to Google and Google just displays what they are given.

So pressure needs to be applied to Google with the awareness that TerraServer®.com is the company that supplies the images.

[Greyskye]

21. Your mapquest link comes up blank

Maybe they forgot about that one until you pointed it out. :evilgrin:

[jackstraw45]

19. So Google, Where are the TWIN TOWERS in NEW YORK?

Pathetic Bushco whores....

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. Does that mean you don't want their money?

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-02-13-google-give-usat_x.htm

[ends_dont_justify]

24. Yes, that means we don't want their money

We don't need to become monsters while fighting them. If google wants to go batshit crazy and start trying to replace one of the nation's worst disasters in history, we don't need that kind of association in our party :)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. Google doesn't produce satellite data.

They buy it from third parties. As I said upthread, they likely acquired it as part of a larger image set acquisition. The images do not appear to be the same as the old Google pre-Katrina images, and it's likely that if enough people bring this to their attention they will fix it. So send them a fucking e-mail (I have) before you accuse them of being evil assholes.

[intheflow]

23. Only part of Mississippi is restored.

From about Long Beach west to the Louisiana line. Biloxi still shows the casino barges washed ashore, and the last of those were disassembled months ago. It is disturbing to think that one of these days the Biloxi shots will be replaced to pre-Katrina imagry.

It's easy to tell the pre-storm to post-storm photos. Pre-storm the trees on the beach were all alive. Post-storm, whole tracks of trees on the shore were either broken by wind and surge, or died from salt water contamination in the drought after the storm.

I am a volunteer coordinator here on the Coast, and my volunteers are always shocked and angered by the level of destruction they see, now 19 months after the storm. If this coup goes off, it will go along way to perpetuating the myth that everything is recovering just fine down here. :grr:

K&R

[barb162]

25. With the power of that storm I am surprised anything is repaired.

Really. That 25 foot surge.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

27. Picked up on this Google Earth blog today...

http://www.gearthblog.com/