Hi, all - thanks for your patience - we're going to start sending prints out as promised as soon as you submit the correct information. Please check your inboxes - we've asked for mailing addresses, names, and your choice of photos.

By the way, the finalized maps (so far) can be found on this page:

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/...

The link sent out with our questions was a larger set including lots of pictures of Louisiana Bucket Brigade folks on beaches, boats, etc. but if you simply want a map, check out the above link.

Thanks again and don't hesitate to get in touch with questions!

Hi, all -

This is our last day of Kickstarter fund-raising. Shannon from LABB put together a budget and we think that with ~$11,000 we could continue mapping all the way through January, even paying local fishermen to take us out on boats. So if you could forward this along to anyone you know who'd be able to chip in, we want to try to make up some of that $4k gap. Initially we were just trying to map through the summer, but this is going to be a long-term problem and we're looking a bit further to the future.

Updates:

Kris Ansin of LABB and Tulane went out on June 9 in a seaplane provided by the Blue Seals, and brought back some really disturbing images, many of which will make great maps. See below, especially the one with the giant columns of smoke (that one's not for a map, but it's still breathtaking).

Stewart Long of GonzoEarth.com also finished up a new map of Perdido Point:

The really stunning part of this map is that the images were submitted by someone we weren't working with - Don and Justin Blancher, who heard a talk about our efforts and simply went out and did it. We were surprised and a little confused when they emailed us asking where to upload the images, and when we actually saw them we were blown away. So many thanks to them for taking such initiative!

Best,
Jeff

A new map is up as of a couple days ago which you might not have seen:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreywarren/4706991316/in/photostream/

This is before oil hits, but look at the notes on Flickr, there's a BP
station in the map, booms at the end of the pier (NOAA imagery isn't good
enough to show that) and of course a Waffle House:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreywarren/4706490807/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreywarren/4707131468/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreywarren/4706490467/

This and all our other maps are now online at a shiny new page:

http://grassrootsmapping.org/data/

There's also a new way to contribute to the project: it's called MapMill, and it's basically a Hot or Not for our oil spill imagery. We spend a lot of time sorting through imagery to find good, clear, straight-down images, and we're asking everyone to chip in a bit of their time to speed this process up:

http://MapMill.org

Best,
Jeff

Hi everyone - Thanks again for your support; we have 9 days left and I wanted to ask you all to help get the word out for a final push for funding, as well as update you all on our latest imagery and maps.

Stewart Long from GonzoEarth.com just finished up another stitched map which we'll publish shortly, but a smaller version is attached, and to see a near-full resolution version, try the following link:

(This is a huge image even though it's not full-resolution; I'd right-click and save, rather than opening it up in your browser. )

http://maps.grassrootsmapping.org/preview/grand-isle-terre.jpg

This shows almost a mile of coastline at Isle Grande Terre (view on Google Maps) with stains of oil, and was gathered by volunteers Tara Foster and Randy Caruso from the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. You can see them launching the balloon in the attached video, below.

(And some helicopters getting curious about the balloons here http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreywarren/4692495867/)

Balloons are popping more often than we'd like, so I just ordered a more durable balloon from Souther Balloon Works:
southernballoonworks.com/balloons/giant-ball-balloons.html
They're a bit more expensive but have thicker skins and are intended for longer-term use. I got a 6-foot wide red one. But look - you can get ones printed as globes, at up to 22 ft. wide! Don't worry, we won't buy one.

Thanks again and let's keep up the momentum!

Thanks to everyone for your support - we're over 1/5 the way there after only 5 days!

The team at Louisiana Bucket Brigade just ran out of balloons, so we're sending down 4 more ($30 each). They now have 2 kites ($110 each) and 3 cameras ($80 each). Your support is going to help enormously! We're now working on the first before/after map of Grand Isle, and will post it soon (we'll announce it here, don't worry!).
Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Wikipedia.

The photo was taken by Stewart Long of http://GonzoEarth.com, on a plane arranged by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. Thanks to all involved!

The full map is available here: http://maps.grassrootsmapping.org/chandeleur-may8-plane/

We've also figured out a way to send balloons up to 4000 ft using a power drill and a more compact, stronger reel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreywarren/4664610542/

And finally, for those of you who haven't see it, there's also this great video zooming around the Chandeleur ballooning trip from May 9th, attached. You can see individual birds - terns and pelicans, on a sandbar... This map is so high resolution that the entire thing fits within a single pixel of NASA's daily MODIS images of the spill. That's 10,000x higher detail!

Hooray!

Best,
Jeff