Gulf Coast Topographic Data for FEMA for Katrina Rebuilding Effort

Intermap Technologies (CO, USA) has announced that it has provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) with terrain elevation and imagery data of the Gulf Coast region for the Katrina rebuilding effort. The data will be made available to state, local and federal officials at no charge through 2005. Collected in late 2004 and early 2005 the data is part of Intermap's NEXTMap USA program which is the remapping of the entire continental United States and Hawaii.

In addition to the pre-hurricane data, Intermap has also completed the collection of post-hurricane data over the hardest hit regions of the Gulf Coast. This new collection will provide a post-Katrina comparison of beach erosion, sand deposition and changes to drainage patterns. The pre-Katrina and post-Katrina data sets will be extremely helpful in planning the reconstruction efforts. One of the critical factors in the planning is modelling of future storm surge events. Intermap's data will be an important asset for those modelling efforts.

3D radar images of New Orleans before and after hurricane Katrina can be viewed on Intermap's website.