Local companies and leaders in the satellite imagery and geographic information systems industries are providing their technology and support to relief efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Thornton-based Space Imaging is shooting imagery of Gulf Coast areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and selling them to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is using the images for security, emergency response and research.
“Satellite imagery shows the current lay of the land and is very useful when you compare it to archive imagery that we’ve taken prior to the hurricane,” said Space Imaging spokesman Gary Napier. “It very clearly shows areas that are affected. That way, you can assign resources in a pretty efficient manner.”
Space Imaging is also talking with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense about selling images to them. The company is also working on a “change detection” set of images to see how things like water, vegetation, buildings, roads and bridges have changed.
“Unfortunately, we’re very used to shooting and responding quickly to natural disasters,” such as hurricanes, last year’s tsunami in southern Asia and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Napier said.
Longmont-based DigitalGlobe is also collecting satellite imagery of affected areas.
“DigitalGlobe is aware of the extreme humanitarian need in the communities impacted by Hurricane Katrina,” according to a statement from the company.
The Aurora-based Geospatial Information & Technology Association is acting as a clearing center for emergency requests from the Gulf Coast area and for volunteers and contributions from the geographic information systems industry, which links records in a database with information displayed on maps.
Executive director Bob Samborski is helping to coordinate shipments of about 80 to 100 Global Positioning System receivers contributed by companies that include Trimble, Leica, Navteq and Garmin for search and rescue crews and geographic information systems experts to use.
Geographic information systems companies along the Front Range and nationwide have been excellent at responding to this need, Samborski said. “You see all sorts of the usual business kind of rules being suspended in order to help. This is a very generous and knowledgeable community, and the potential for using this kind of technology in times like this is just huge.”
Different types of GPS receivers can be used to locate utility boxes or navigate through areas no longer marked by roads, addresses or defined waterways.
“There’s no streets. The rivers look like everything else,” Samborski said.
GPS devices could also help teams communicate information when locating bodies in buried structures, underwater or under rubble.
Some from the geographic information systems industry have volunteered to go to the affected areas to help. Samborski said he expected several industry people from the Front Range to be on the ground there for seven to 10 days.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
