robrrt

The Google Street View car follows a skater down Mallory Street in Pensacola.

The Google streetview car driver makes a stop at the mall to do some Christmas shopping.

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(gotta save a screenshot – because updates happen)

(featured on Google Sightseeing)

Nah, just a building at the Navy base in San Diego.

It appears that there is still a portion of the western Mississippi Gulf Coast that hasn’t updated to post-katrina (and, no, I still don’t capitalize that word) images on Google Maps. The area where the old blends with the new shows an amazing contrast of just what destruction a hurricane can do.

It seems that there is a big buzz around the blogosphere and internet news sites concerning Google Maps’ return to pre-katrina satellite views for the New Orleans area.

First of all, it could be that I’m just on a renegade Google data center, but I haven’t seen the post-katrina views for over a year now. Big honking deal.

Second, since when did it become Google’s responsibility to provide close-up views of all the devastation that most would rather forget? Go back through this blog and you will see that I’ve had my own criticisms of Google and I’ll surely have more in the future. However, I’ve got Google’s back on this. It’s a free service to you, the viewer. Unless you’re a stockholder, I’m sure Google could care less about your conspiracy theory (whatever that theory may be.) Want/need post-katrina satellite views? Go to the NOAA site. From what I’ve seen, it has better images anyway.

(update – 4/2) Looks like Google has updated again – to post-post-katrina images. Not the flooding images from immediately afterwards, but blue-roof and FEMA trailer shots after the water had receded. Google didn’t give in to the feds before, I have to wonder if they are doing so now.

And I see that the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool is still going strong.

Now you see it, now you don’t. Looks like Google Maps had a challenge blending post-katrina and pre-katrina shots.

Hope the incoming traffic stops in time…

At first glance, this looks like an arial dogfight.

As it turns out, it’s just some shrimp boats off the Louisiana coast.

This boat remains where Hurricane Ivan left her two years ago. Zoom out and you can see more derelict boats.

Now that Google Maps has updated locally with increased resolution, I thought I would do a little cruise around the neighborhood. At first glance, you would have to think, “Wow, there sure is a pile of swimming pools around here.”

As it turns out, if you zoom in, the blue you see is actually just blue roofs!
(I really have no way of knowing how old these shots actually are, but I would bet that they are less than a year old)