Google Turns Back Time In New Orleans

In Peculiar Twist, Web Giant's Big Easy Satellite Map Images Are Pre-Katrina

(AP)  Only a few mouse clicks away, a total revision of the recent history of the Big Easy is on offer from Google Inc.'s popular map portal.

The company has replaced post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with pictures taken before the storm, and it has left locals feeling like they are in a time loop.

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

He said he was not sure when the current images replaced views of the city taken after Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005, flooding an estimated 80 percent of New Orleans.

In the images available Thursday, the cranes working to fix the lethal breach of the 17th Street Canal are gone. Homes wiped off their foundations are miraculously back in place in the impoverished Lower 9th Ward. So, too, is the historic lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain.

Scroll across the city, and across 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 Lower 9th Ward Economic Development Association. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google don't pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine."'

In the Lower 9th Ward, the truth is not pretty 19 months after Katrina.

"Everything is missing. The people are missing. Nobody is there. We still have no idea what's happening," Henry said.

His pharmacy is still closed, the laundry shop next door has not even been gutted yet, and the church across the street is in bad shape, he said. None of that shows up on Google's satellite imagery.

Walter Stone, a local land surveyor, said he uses Google in his work and was surprised to discover the new (ergo old) imagery.

"For a while you could go look at the damage that was done, you could see the blue roofs on houses," he said.

Google has become a go-to service for people looking for a quick and easy way to get up-close satellite imagery of the world.

"I use it on a regular basis in my class," said Craig Colten, a geographer at Louisiana State University. "I teach a course about North America and I usually have it up constantly when I am teaching. I usually have a Google Earth image up behind me to zoom in on Manhattan or the fishing villages of Maine, whatever I'm talking about."

Colten, who has written extensively on New Orleans, called Google's switch "unbelievable."

"I'm sure the mayor is thrilled," he quipped, a reference to the slow pace of recovery of New Orleans and attempts by city leadership to paint a rosy picture of New Orleans.

After Katrina, Google's satellite images were in high demand among exiles and hurricane victims anxious to see if their homes were flooded or damaged by the storm.

Pete Gerica, a fisherman who lives in eastern New Orleans, said he printed pictures of his waterside homestead from Google to use in his arguments with insurance adjusters.

He would love for the "new" Google images to be real. "Take a magic pill and go back into the past," Gerica said, laughing.

The virtual Potemkin village is fueling the imagination of frustrated locals.

"I think a lot of stuff they're doing right now is smoke and mirrors because tourism is so off," Gerica said. "It might be somebody's weird spin on things looking better."

"Is Google part of the conspiracy?" Henry asked, alluding to widespread feelings among many New Orleans blacks that they are being neglected in the rebuilding effort. "Why these images of pre-Katrina? Seems mighty curious."

Ohazama, the Google product manager, said he "personally" was not asked by city or state officials to change the imagery, but he added that Google gets lots of requests from users and governments to update and change its imagery.

David Gisclair, chairman of the Louisiana GIS Council, a consortium of state agencies, said he would try to get some answers from Google when the company shows up on April 19 in a bid to sell the state some new technology.

"Maybe we can strike a deal with Google to put the 2005 imagery of the city in ruins on the Web," he said.

"If we represent something," Gisclair said, "we should represent reality."

[silver9991]

Solution, Google people: Show New Orleans as it is today as the default. Have a link there for people who wish to view it before the hurricane -- for insurance reasons, or because they want to have images to remember their earlier lives there. The default, however, should be contemporary, I believe.

[zootallures2]

What else would one expect from DARPA?
Always keep in mind, the internet is run by the Military Industrial Complex, in the first place.

[inventagod]

Hello, Google -
This is President George Bu$h. Thank y'all for helping me rebuild New Orleans! Wow, that was easy. Brownie and I feel like we are flying over the city, and have been patting each other on the back for the fine work we did. We hope the citizens of this huge country remember this moment when it's time to re-elect me and the gang in 2008!
-Dubya

[dbstevens]

I'm from New Orleans and lost my home there. Since then, I've been amazed at how varied and diverse are people's ideas of what is appropriate and what constitutes "truth." In my opinion, nothing is served by putting these inaccurate pictures on Google, and personally, I get a lump in my throat and very depressed when I see pictures of my house, which no longer exists.

Anything that deviates from the truth, no matter how painful that might be, is wrong and unhealthy, in my opinion. Whomever made the decision to do this was wrong, even if they were somehow well-intentioned.

[pghlady3]

for everyone in LA, I am so very sorry for everyone loss. Google should up date the maps- Maybe Nagin wants the world to think NOLA is back. For everyone other than in LA, like in D.C., or Rhode Island, virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Mass, Maine Delaware. You better take head, you are all BELOW SEA LEVEL ALSO, Katrina went @35-40 miles inland with tidal waves 35 feet tall, None of you are safe if a cat 5 hits you either.

[lsutigr]

I have been checking Google Maps since the hurricane to see updated pictures of Slidell, where we live and have NOT seen pictures taken after the storm. The woods behind our home are still there even though they have built a number of home on the property since the hurricane hit. It is really a disappointment this long after the storm.

[lsutigr]

I have been checking Google Maps since the hurricane to see updated pictures of Slidell, where we live and have NOT seen pictures taken after the storm. The woods behind our home are still there even though they have built a number of home on the property since the hurricane hit. It is really a disappointment this long after the storm.

[lsutigr]

I have been checking Google Maps since the hurricane to see updated pictures of Slidell, where we live and have NOT seen pictures taken after the storm. The woods behind our home are still there even though they have built a number of home on the property since the hurricane hit. It is really a disappointment this long after the storm.

[lsutigr]

I have been checking Google Maps since the hurricane to see updated pictures of Slidell, where we live and have NOT seen pictures taken after the storm. The woods behind our home are still there even though they have built a number of home on the property since the hurricane hit. It is really a disappointment this long after the storm.

[lsutigr]

I have been checking Google Maps since the hurricane to see updated pictures of Slidell, where we live and have NOT seen pictures taken after the storm. The woods behind our home are still there even though they have built a number of home on the property since the hurricane hit. Anymore all they are good for is direction maps.

[lsutigr]

I have been checking Google Maps since the hurricane to see updated pictures of Slidell, where we live and have NOT seen pictures taken after the storm. The woods behind our home are still there even though they have built a number of home on the property since the hurricane hit. Anymore all they are good for is direction maps.

If you bring up the images of the Louisiana Superdome it says Hope in Hell

[rray52]

Google Earth changed the photo of my place about 6 months ago. The new photo is older, (from a missing pond and pasture about 8 or 9 years instead of the previous 5 years) but has a much higher resolution.

Google has always said that the photos are of a mixed age and that they update with higher resolution when available

All in all not bad for free.