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Hurricane Sandy (Frankenstorm) Gets Google Crisis Response Maps

Google’s Crisis Response team has put together a Hurricane Sandy map with location tracking, public alerts, radar/cloud imagery, evacuation information, shelters and storm footage. “Alread...
Hurricane Sandy (Frankenstorm) Gets Google Crisis Response Maps
Written by Chris Crum
  • Google’s Crisis Response team has put together a Hurricane Sandy map with location tracking, public alerts, radar/cloud imagery, evacuation information, shelters and storm footage.

    “Already responsible for a reported 41 deaths across the Caribbean, late-season Hurricane Sandy is expected to make landfall again early this week on the East Coast of the United States,” said Google software engineer Ka-Ping Yee. “Some are calling the hurricane ‘Frankenstorm’ due to its potential mix of both winter and tropical cyclone weather. Regardless of what you call it, we hope that you get the information you need to make preparations and stay safe if you are in the area. It has the potential to be one of the worst storms the area has seen in decades.”

    The location tracking includes the hurricane’s current and forecasted paths. The data comes from the NOAA-National Hurricane Center.

    The public alerts include evacuation notices, storm warnings, etc. This data comes from weather.gov and earthquake.usgs.gov.

    The radar and cloud imagery is from weather.com and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Shelter and recovery center info appears as such facilities become operational.

    The storm footage comes from YouTube, as curated by Storyful. The map, is embeddable (just click the share button to grab the code):

    Additionally, Google has launched a map for New York City with evacuation zone info from NYC Open Data, open shelters, weather info and live webcams.

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