NOAA has made available imagery that shows the extent of catastrophic destruction around Florida’s panhandle from Hurricane Michael. By allowing the user to toggle imagery captured prior to Hurricane Michael’s arrival to imagery captured after, one can see not only how most structures were destroyed at the point of impact, but how the terrain has been altered too. The before and after imagery shows the extensive destruction that occurred in Panama City, even far from the coast. And it illustrates how much of Mexico Beach was erased from the map. Structures weren’t the only thing erased: the imagery also shows how the coastline was altered, replacing what was once land and roads with the Gulf of Mexico.
This imagery was acquired by the NOAA Remote Sensing Division to support NOAA homeland security and emergency response requirements. In addition, it will be used for ongoing research efforts for testing and developing standards for airborne digital imagery. Individual images have been combined into a larger mosaic and tiled for distribution. The approximate ground sample distance (GSD) for each pixel is ~25 cm / zoom level 19.
Images from the coast from Fort Morgan at the Florida/Alabama border east to Marsh Island south and west of Tallahassee are available for viewing. The entire city of Panama City is also available for viewing.
The stunning image can be viewed and downloaded for free at this link: https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/michael/index.html#9/30.0085/-85.6549
