Technology Tracking Katrina

Pretty soon hurricane Katrina will hit new Orleans. It's shaping up to be a direct hit, which will be devastating considering it's a cat-5.

Washington Monthly has an article that basically says 'get out of New Orleans now', which seems to be the consensus: there's a standing evacuation order. Hope you've read the Hurricane Evacuation Guide (pdf). In fact, if you are anywhere near there, I hope you're in a position to get somewhere else pronto.

Local meteorologists predict that Katrina will make landfall at around 7 a.m. Monday morning and that it will likely run smack into New Orleans.

Anyway, for the digital disaster tourist in you, I found a google earth overlay which uses live data from aviationweather.com that allows you to track the hurricane semi-live (of course you need to have Google Earth installed) . I also found some still-functioning webcams by the port of New Orleans. This flash-based hurricane tracker where you can see the path of the hurricane and its growing fury over time is pretty neat, considering you are most likely watching a disaster unfolding. The tracker also has a wealth of historical data, including all the storms of 2004/2005 and some of the great historical storms from 1900-2005.

- Here's a google maps representation
- The National Hurricane Center has a lot of information, including a RSS feed with advisories are they are published. They also have a tracker going.
- BBC News is asking people affected by the hurricane to leave a comment.
- Here's a java tracker from hurricanetrack.com; they also have a java app that allows you to view the current cyclone position as well as the forecast positions over a high-resolution NAVY sea surface temperatures map.
- WXnation has a blog post with lots of linky goodness.
- Washington Post has a slideshow with photos of people preparing for Katrina and people in Florida cleaning up.
- Here's a WDSU weather news stream (asx).
- The wikipedia also has a large page devoted to Katrina, which has:
- more webcam, webcam, webcam, webcam, webcam, webcam links!

UPDATE from the National Hurricane Center's RSS feed:

AT 610 AM CDT...1110Z...HURRICANE KATRINA HAS MADE LANDFALL IN
SOUTHERN PLAQUEMINES PARISH LOUISIANA...JUST SOUTH OF BURAS...AS A CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE. MAXIMUM WINDS ARE ESTIMATED AT 140 MPH TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER.

Tagged hurricane, katrina, neworleans, webcam, googlemaps, googleearth, flash, tracker