Google has created a Katrina button that appears when you call up New Orleans in Google Maps. It displays a satellite image of the flooded city, fully zoomable. It appears that new imagery has been added, which (not to be churlish at a time like this) makes one wonder why Google doesn't update its Maps/Earth imagery more aggressively. Recent imagery is either available globally, or was taken specially of New Orleans. [thanks to Evan Brown and wilymon]
Google Earth is participating in the updated imagery as well. This page links to Katrina overlays; click any link to launch Google Earth and see the updated image. An amazing new feature comes bundled with these images: a transparency slider that allows you to compare the pre-Katrina image with the new image. [via Google blog]
1. In the Katrina imagery, a lot of the area is obscured by clouds.
Therefore, even if updated imagery is available globally, it still has to be edited by a human being to avoid publishing photos with obstructions.
This could be a reason for not updating the Satellite imagery, even if updates are available.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Derek Banducci