This week saw New Orleans take direct impact from a tornado — the second this year. Last March, an EF3 touched down on the city, continuing for 11.5 miles and reaching max wind speeds of 160 mph. New Orleans was still recovering when an EF2 undid much of those rebuilding efforts on December 14. This new tornado lasted 9.5 miles, with wind speeds maxing out at 125 mph.
New Orleans is nothing if not resilient. We were devastated by the tornado’s impact and for those affected, and hope the imagery gathered can help play a role in the city’s recovery.
Now that the storm has passed, we’ve been able to capture the aftermath and provide invaluable data to those who can best get New Orleans on the road to recovery.
New Orleans wasn’t the only area affected by tornadoes this week. The South Central U.S. region experienced over 40 tornadoes from December 12-15 and there will likely be more confirmations as the storm surveys continue to gather information. Ratings currently record just one EF3, with the rest being either EF2 or below. Six of those tornadoes impacted Tarrant County, TX, (imagery of Grapevine, TX is now available) with other reported twisters ranging from Oklahoma all the way to Florida.
Nearmap has been able to monitor these storms around the clock, create the areas of influence in real-time, and get planes up first thing — both on December 14 and 15. Data was sent same-day back to our survey operations team to ensure that imagery could be rapidly published for response and recovery efforts via Nearmap ImpactResponse.
Learn more about Nearmap ImpactResponse and access all our post-catastrophe aerial imagery.
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