Google Launches Hurricane Isaac Site 43
redletterdave writes "Google Crisis Response, one of Google's thousands of active projects that merges various Google tools like Maps, Docs, Forms and Earth, posted a new webpage on Monday dedicated to Tropical Storm Isaac — soon to be Hurricane Isaac — in an effort to disseminate helpful information about the hurricane's path, its forecasted track, and how local residents can stay safe during this emergency situation. Google's Crisis Map for Hurricane Isaac allows the user to set up and see public alerts from weather.gov, flood gauge forecasts, surge zones, evacuation zones and routes, barrier resources and relevant YouTube videos for each impacted area."
Actual Google site (Score:5, Informative)
The actual Google Crisis site is:
http://google.org/crisismap/2012-tropical-system-isaac [google.org]
Ahaha! There it is. (Score:2)
I do find it amusing, though, how this query, https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hurricane%20isaac [google.com], doesn't return Google's crisis site.
Search giants, indeed ;)
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They're just trying not to get sued by some random Microsoft backed consumer watch dog for favoring their crisis site over others. Also, the Microsoft crisis site requires Silverlight so many are SOL either way. :)
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I say we all do it at 4:20pmET tomorrow to test this theory.
I can see it now, "Reports of Republicans yelling, 'I should have believed in Global Warming!'."
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I found the site rather content-free except for YouTube entries linking to YouTube. I would have hoped any information would have been at a glance on that page.
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Thank you! This is actually hard to find using Google. Type in "hurricane Isaac" and started scrolling down.
Nope...nope...nope..."Robert Reich: George W. Bush As Hurricane Isaac", looked for the -1 troll button but was on the wrong site.
Re:Actual Google site (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a big fan of wunderground's Wundermap [wunderground.com].
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Came here to post this. The wundermap has been out for quite some time, and it's pretty handy. These two sites seem very similar; the sidebars are practically the same.
Like rock and roll (Score:2, Funny)
I never expected Google to be a company that cheaply jumps on the latest fad that blows by.
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I never expected Google to be a company that cheaply jumps on the latest fad that blows by.
We need them to work on the technology of controling the weather ... push it to the east a hundred miles would be a good start.
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I never expected Google to be a company that cheaply jumps on the latest fad that blows by.
We need them to work on the technology of controling the weather ... push it to the east a hundred miles would be a good start.
A "self-driving" google hurricaine?
Ya know... I think that sounds even more fun than a flying car. Where can I get one? (c=
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It is completely inappropriate to WANT a hurricane to devastate a state just to delay a few people you don't like. Grow up.
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Actually, it's kinda a logical extension of their original (somewhat overblown) mission of collecting as much data as possible, organizing it, and disseminating it as useful information to people. Lots of people have tried it (there was a disaster a few years ago where Wikipedia was used as an information store, as I remember) and it seems like a decent thing to do.
On top of that, Google is an advertising-based Internet startup that seems to have incongruously lasted 10 years longer than its expected lifes
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no, you misunderstand. google actually launched hurricane isaac. that's how advanced their r&d into alternative energy is
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Intensity isn't everything. Location matters too. Isaac is weaker, sure, but it's expected to strengthen in the Gulf a little and the predicted path near landfall is surprisingly similar to that of Katrina, kind of on the east side of New Orleans or over the top. That's the worst situation for landfall in that area, because the counter-clockwise flow of the hurricane will tend to push the water up into Lake Pontchartrain on the north side of the city and up the canal system that connects the city to the
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Isaac should make landfall (at most) as a Category 2 hurricaine, according to info as of Monday 5 pm Eastern. 7 years ago Irene was a Category 5 before making landfall, and was downgraded to a Category 3 by the time it made land.
I don't know about NOLA, but Northern Florida has been pretty squishy underfoot for weeks between the actual tropical storms and the systems that probably would have become tropical storms if tropical storms could form over land. And, after all, it wasn't the wind that trashed New Orleans in Katrina, it was the water. If the ground there is as saturated as the ground in the Florida Panhandle, the extra rainfall could make a real mess of things.
On the plus side, they hopefully have fixed the worst of the lev
Thanks for removing the link to Google CR site (Score:5, Insightful)
Worthless.
http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/ [google.org]
Re:Thanks for removing the link to Google CR site (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot has just about hit the point of "A common household item can kill you! We'll tell you which one, at 11."
"Google has created a potentially lifesaving website. Here's some guy's blog post about it."
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Damn straight it is lifesaving. Did you look at the map's color legend?
Less intense is light green at 12 dBZ, up through deep, dark red at a whopping 64+ Dragon Ball Zs.
I don't know where Super Saiyan 5 is, but it looks off the low green end. This thing will FUCK YOU UP. I seen it on TV!
Relevant Youtube videos? (Score:3)
"No, hold on, man. We can evacuate in a minute. There's this even better hurricane video we should watch next!"
Better data at the NHC website (Score:3)
Sure there is some youtube links on Google's mashup site.
More timely information can be found on the National Hurricane Center's interactive website [noaa.gov]
Bloated as hell page (Score:3)
Wow, this page is so incredibly slow and clunky. Google, you can do SO MUCH better. Come on.
Meanwhile, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov] provides all the information you could want about the storm, and it loads instantly.
Sometimes all you need is the content.
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> Wow, this page is so incredibly slow and clunky
Stop using Netscape 6.0. It's 2012, for fuck sake. And if it matters, I loaded it almost instantly three times.
(BTW, who is modding this? Anything against Google is by default insightful?)
What can we really infer? (Score:1)
Either Obama has directed a secret army of weather control satellites to interrupt the republican convention or God *really* hates Republicans. Which theory will Fox News promote?