cloudsourced

Confusion reigns in the aftermath of any big natural disaster, but particularly in what was already a failed state – Haiti. With the little existing political and social infrastructure now destroyed, the situation is bleak.The irrepressible Mikel seems to be coordinating the OSM response amongst other missions. It might seem pretty small but you can get involved in creating better mapping to help in the search, rescue and eventual cleanup operations. The information is crucial to aid agencies arriving on the ground.

See the Earthquake Response on the OSM Wiki, the CrisisMapper Google Group, and while you’re at it donate to the Red Cross. There are already some very useful maps up on GeoCommons, thanks to Andrew Turner amongst others.

This morning I added a few street names and the Town Hall in Port-au-Prince to OSM, from historical maps on Map Warper, thanks to Tim Waters.

Here’s what it looks like now.

That’s from some GeoEye images recently released on Google Earth. A vivid example of how up-to-date geodata is essential for crisis management.

We have yet to confirm whether the images can be used for updating OpenStreetMap. Here’s hoping that sense prevails.