Google Restores Katrina's Scars to Google Earth

[IChing]

Source: Informationweek.

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek

April 2, 2007 02:00 PM
Accused by a congressional subcommittee last week of "airbrushing history" for altering Google Earth last year to show imagery of New Orleans that predates Hurricane Katrina, Google on Sunday expedited a planned update of Google Earth with new high-resolution pictures of the Gulf Coast that better reflects reality.

In a letter sent to Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Friday, Brad Miller, D-N.C., chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, said, "Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history."

Miller's observation clearly touched a nerve.

In a blog post, John Hanke, director of Google Earth & Maps, describes Google's volunteer work on behalf of the victims of the hurricane, to make clear that Google's heart is in the right place. He points out that in 2005, Google worked diligently with NOAA, NASA, and others to update Google Earth with images that reflected the storm's impact. "We received a voice mail thanking us for the role Google Earth played in guiding rescuers to stranded victims," he said in his post.>>>snip

Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198701867

[pitohui]

1. there is no "enhancement" in putting out wrong outdated information

i think everyone involved in the storm did appreciate the use of google/maps at the time, to see the flooded areas, and to check on their houses and neighborhoods, esp. when we were trapped at distant locations

this made the betrayal and the air-brushing of history just that much more painful, because it was hard to understand why google would remove useful and accurate information and replace it with old outdated stuff that would only cause pain with its memories of what has been lost

you don't replace more current info with more out-dated info and call it an "enhancement," that's just not cool

[Dr.Phool]

2. I don't know how often they update images

But if I look at my home, I can see the previous owners motor home and boat in the driveway, And I've been here over 4 years.

[pitohui]

3. you don't get it, they had the correct information and they removed it

google/maps worked very hard to get the correct information online within days of the storm, so that people who were evacuated and not allowed to return to the evacuated areas could at least see their homes and neigborhoods online

what google did recently was remove the information that went online in september 2005 and put much older information online -- from before the storm

it is not a matter of, they didn't have post-k info to post, they had plenty of it, gathered and posted online in record time

it is that they chose to remove it when the state of (non) recovery became embarrassing

it may be that YOUR neighborhood hasn't been updated in 4 years, but the greater new orleans area was updated in september 2005


so putting up info from earlier than that is just not on

congress wants to know who told google to put back up the old, outdated information and if any gov't agency was involved to make it look like recovery was happening in areas where recovery ain't happening -- fema, bush admin, even city of new orleans, could all have put pressure on google to post the outdated info

this wasn't an innocent oversight or that they forgot to update new orleans info, this was a deliberate fraud, a lie to make it look like nola was the same as before the storm by using maps generated from satellites before the storm


for instance, lakeview neighborhood and west end marina were completely destroyed and has enjoyed very little recovery, the other day i went on google/maps and they had a completely false image of this neighborhood as it was back in olden times

[uppityperson]

4. Revisioning is really making "enhancements" ? bull

"Hanke's explanation for revising history is that last September Google replaced Gulf Coast imagery with higher resolution satellite photos from before the storm "as part of a regular series of global data enhancements.""

[uppityperson]

5. Here is a comparison of what is shown now. Example New Orleans Lower 9th Ward.

By where barge went through levee (off to left).

mapquest


google maps

[pitohui]

6. nice job

i was too disgusted and heartsick to make up a similar comparison, altho i considered it, your efforts are much appreciated

i have also requested the mods to combine both threads together, it would be nice to have the whole discussion in one place

the other thread is about the subcommittee trying to get answers about why google did this--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2789477

congressman miller wants to know if any gov't authority such as fema pressured google to paint the falsely rosy picture

[IChing]

7. thanks for the update on what was changed n/t

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

8. ALRIGHT!!

Thank you Brad Miller!!!!