Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Tracking Hurricane Sandy and other Natural Disasters


The massive storm that started out as Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast and morphed into a huge and problematic system, killing at least 61 people in the United States as of today, October 31, 2012. Power outages now stand at more than 6.3 million homes and businesses, down from a peak of 8.5 million.

You may be worried for your friends and relatives living in the affected area. One of the Google projects is helping to get current status of events on the map, covering:

  • ·       Shelters and Recovery Centers Locations
  • ·         Power outage information
  • ·         Traffic conditions, and much more.

You can check the map specifically related to Hurricane Sandy here:



Looking globally, you can also follow up with the worldwide conditions at the Weather, Hazards, and Emergency preparedness map, also developed by Google. Before going for exotic vacation, check if there are no alerts linked to your destination.



If say you do not trust Google and do not want to use its resources, you can track the weather and disasters’ warnings through Esri’s Public Information Map: