Google’s Crisis Response team has a landing page for the Gulf oil spill featuring overlays for Google Maps/Earth. This joins their pages for other recent natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China. Some support ‘crowsourcing’ by allowing people to upload information, data and queries.

Google Crisis Response page for the 2010 Gulf oil spill

“Working with the input of subject matter experts and in conjunction with like-minded organizations and the development community at large, Google Crisis Response facilitates the development and refinement of crisis response technology—with the ultimate goal of helping victims help themselves and helping first responders/relief agencies/governments/citizens help victims.

When a major disaster strikes, the Google Crisis Response team collects fresh high-resolution imagery plus other event-specific data, then publishes this information on a dedicated landing page.

Google Crisis Response Mission

To develop, maintain, and optimize a worldwide, rapid-deployment protocol to speed the dissemination of situational information and increase the efficacy of rescue and humanitarian aid activities in response to quick-onset disasters.

Google Crisis Response will:

• Coordinate with other platforms, organizations and teams
• Build tools to surface near-real-time data
• Support response/relief organizations
• Respond in times of crisis

There doesn’t seem to be a list of these pages online, but here are a few:

• Typhoon Ondoy
• Chile earthquake
• Haiti earthquake
• Qinghai, China
• Gulf oil spill