Google has replaced current maps of New Orleans with pre-Katrina satellite images on its Google Maps website.
"Scroll across the city and 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 economic development association in New Orleans' devastated Lower 9th Ward."
"Chikai Ohazama, a Google Inc. product manager for satellite imagery, said the maps now available are the best the company can offer. Numerous factors decide what goes 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 breach of the 17th Street Canal are gone. Blue tarps that covered roofless homes are replaced by shingles. Homes wiped off their foundations are miraculously back in place in the Lower 9th. So, too, is the historic lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain."
FULL STORY: Google Goes Back to Pre-Katrina Maps
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