Members of the House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight grilled Google over the company's replacement of post-Hurricane Katrina satellite images of New Orleans with images taken before the storm, according to The Associated Press.
When Katrina made landfall near Buras, La., on Aug. 29, 2005, the category-three storm caused 80 percent of New Orleans to flood, according to the AP.
Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., wrote a letter to Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to ask why the company decided to revert to the older images, the AP reported.
"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," Miller wrote.
While Schmidt did not immediately offer a response to Miller's letter, Google officials said the clearest New Orleans images provided by one of their service providers in the service's most recent update happened to come from a period before Katrina's landfall, according to the AP.
Miller asked Google to give his staff information on the reasons behind the switch by April 6, the AP reported.
-J.P.
