As Google often does after a major disaster, they’ve reacted quickly and have already posted some imagery (via GeoEye) of areas in Alabama that were hardest hit by the tornadoes a few days ago.
You can view the imagery a variety of different ways:
• Albums: View a before-and-after comparison of various areas inside of this Picasa album.
• Maps: This collection on Google Maps has quite a bit of information, including the new imagery.
• Earth: View the imagery directly in Google Earth using either the Tuscaloosa KML
or the Jefferson County KML. Other KML files can be found on the Maps collection page.As with Google, our hearts go out to those affected by this disaster.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
See the Current Events tornado thread in the GE Community here: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1414710&gonew=1#UNREAD
It’s in the news that thunder storms with tornadoes are going to hit some parts of Alabama and Mississippi on Monday.
But the good news is that it is going to be less deadly than the recent ones.
The record says that the deadliest U.S. tornado struck on March 18, 1925.
It killed as many as 695 people in southeastern Missouri, Southern Arkansas, Northern Louisiana and Western Tennessee.
That’s why it’s very important to be prepared from before.
Wow, what a terrible tragedy. The images sure illustrate how wide the tornado was. Yikes.
Thanks for helping to spread the word. I have friends in Tuscaloosa who lost a family member. Just awful.
The earthquake that hit Haiti was one of the most devastating natural disasters and the earthquake in Japan has struck me with fear; now i have to worry about twisters & tornado’s. I’ve never been one to be concerned about earthquakes or twisters, but after these last couple of natural disasters, the truth is my gf and I are really scared. Now I wake up in the morning to find Joplin Missouri has been hit with the worst tornado in over 60 years. We just moved into our own apartment and i needed to get some safety straps to bring my water heater up to code. to say the least I’ve bought straps for just about everything in my home.
Google Earth had a tornado icon outside Tuscaloosa and Birmingham right after these tornados hit and you could click on that icon to view the damage left by the tornado. I can no longer get the tornado icon even with the “places” category checked. Has Google Earth removed that icon??? HELP…
I live in southbridge, MA…..we were hit by an EF3 tornado on June 1st of this year. i am wondering if there are any mass tornado path overlays available yet? i have a before of our neighborhood….but i want to see what it looks like from the air. thankyou
The street view feature (google earth) is disabled in the path of the tornado!