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Brant Mitchell: We've been using the Google Earth Enterprise
for about three years now.
Basically we took the same model that virtual Alabama is doing.
And we have a globe that's for our first responder community
as well as our government community.
We use it for day-to-day planning,
and we also use it for emergency response.
Tamara Hewitt: That's more focused towards
our emergency managers in our private globe,
and we won't have that on the public globe.
The public globe will have all the same layers
that the government globe has,
but we will have more data that is geared more towards
first responders and emergency managers
in our government globe.
Mitchell: What we want to be able to allow the people
in Louisiana to do is take this particular tool
and help them make faster, smart decisions
especially during an evacuation itself.
We have information on there for hotels,
for veterinary clinics, and
have you got hotels that take vets-or pets.
So anything that might relate to someone who evacuates.
The things that are critical for them
to be successful in their plan.
Whether it's pharmacies, grocery stores, laundromats,
anything that they might need if they evacuate,
really that dynamic data.
How do I get information during an actual evacuation?
I've got this big oil spill that's taken place in the Gulf,
and we're actually providing information specific to the
oil spill on a KMZ that people can download from our website.
It's a sensitive environmental area,
we talk about oyster beds.
People can literally see that along our imagery,
along with all the additional information
that's specific to the oil.
And again is just another way
of providing information to the public.
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Hewitt: The main supplier for our public globe is the
Louisiana GIS DVD, because all of that is public information.
So for the most part we're gonna keep that as our basis
for our data layers for that globe.
Mitchell: We have this opportunity,
we've got all this imagery.
That's not available in the big Google Earth,
and we wanted to be able to offer it to our citizens free,
as well as people outside of Louisiana to come
and see what Louisiana has to offer.
Hewitt: To do that, we have a lot of our festivals
and cultural events
that are prominent in the state that people who are out of
the state may not be aware of or if you live in different areas,
you just may not be aware of these certain types of events.
Mitchell: If we can take those activities and put them on a map
so people can literally see where they are especially
in relation to one another, then we have an opportunity
to really promote and sell Louisiana.
We looked at Google Earth and it was really
not a very difficult decision for us to make.
We were already using it internally,
and the big thing was that it's already being used by
hundreds of millions of users across the country
and as well as the world.
And when they launch it, it's already pointed to the server
they're going to be accessing,
and that just makes it a much more user friendly process.
But more importantly it eliminates the need for us
to support that much staff in technical support.
Hewitt: Currently working on virtual Louisiana,
we have three people.
Two support in the GIS realm as far as the data is concerned,
and then one is with software and engineering.
Mitchell: It's just so easy to use.
And when you look at Google Earth,
people are not afraid of it.
And the idea is they are taking the platform
they may already be using and be familiar with,
and just taking it and making it unique to Louisiana.
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