While residents of the Gulf Coast are buying up supplies and boarding up windows, they are also likely noting that Hurricane Isaac is, coincidentally enough, arriving on the 7th anniversary this week of Hurricane Katrina. That leaves many people seeking shelter elsewhere, and wondering about the projected path of the storm.
To help with that, Google has launched the Tropical Storm Isaac Crisis Map that will track its path, as well as provide the latest updates on hurricane warnings and local evacuations. If there are live webcams in an impacted area, there are links to them as well.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted Tuesday morning that Isaac will become a Category 1 hurricane by the time it makes landfall, likely somewhere near the coast of Louisiana.
The storm currently has the potential to affect "the Florida Panhandle, Alabama, Mississippi or eastern Louisiana," Google says on the site.
Google Crisis Response is a project comprised of "staff engineers, product managers, and partnership professionals who are dedicated to working on efforts that focus on making critical information more accessible during natural disasters," according to the site.
Google's tracker page, in addition to the updated satellite imagery, offers tools such as Google Person Finder, which helps coordinate information about missing persons.
President Barack Obama has already declared a state of emergency in Louisiana as residents prepare for the storm.