FOR INMEDIATE RELEASE
January 2010

Haiti Disaster Relief and Support . ESRI and Geoeye can assist agencies and organizations responding to recent earthquakes in Haiti.

When a crisis on the scale of the recent earthquake in Haiti occurs, we are all moved to help. GeoEye And ESRI have done just that.

As soon as the news broke that there was a major earthquake in Haiti, GeoEye mission planners directed the GeoEye-1 satellite to collect color, high-resolution imagery over Port-au-Prince. On January 13, beginning at 10:27 a.m. EST, from 423 miles in space, GeoEye-1 collected almost 3,000 square kilometers of imagery. On January 16, GeoEye-1 was again in an orbit over Haiti, and it collected stereo imagery over Port-au-Prince. "Stereo imagery" means the satellite collected imagery of the Haitian capital from two different angles on the same orbital pass, so 3-D perspectives of the terrain can be developed.

In the aftermath of this catastrophic earthquake, we hope that GeoEye's "before-and-after" imagery will give viewers an instant visual understanding of the extent of the destruction and reinforce Haiti's need for the world's help to survive this crisis.

"The availability of commercial U.S. very-high-resolution imagery is absolutely fantastic and an enormous asset to the U.N.'s operational work. Thank you all for contributing to that effort."

In GeoEye are proud and honored that emergency first responders and the geospatial community are using our imagery as a base map to produce multiple-layer relief maps to assist with damage assessment, route planning and other crucial aspects of relief efforts.

ESRI is working closely with the geographic information system (GIS) community and agencies responding to the Haiti earthquake by providing software, technical support, GIS data, and personnel. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake-characterized as one of the worst natural disasters ever in the Western Hemisphere-GIS- is assisting in identifying areas of extreme damage, impacts to critical infrastructure, areas suitable for food and water distribution, and more. It gives officials critical information used for making all types of decisions.

Personnel and agencies helping the relief effort can take advantage of maps, data, software, and Web services available online through the ESRI Web site www.esri.com/haiti . Some of the data and services include a 25-meter reference grid of Haiti, an ESRI Geo Viewer, and Haiti basemap data from United Nations available on ArcGIS Online . In addition, ESRI-generated earthquake and recovery maps are available for both the media and public. ESRI will provide updates as they become available.

"ESRI help where we can empower our users with better GIS support," says Russ Johnson, director of public safety solutions for ESRI. "As soon as we learned of the terrible event in Haiti, we activated our emergency operational procedures to assist emergency services, humanitarian relief, health professionals, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], and others. These organizations are working extremely hard to make a difference. We're working to assist their efforts."

As aid and rescue workers pour into Port-au-Prince and other regions, GIS is playing an essential role in the assessment of priorities to get resources and people to the most critical areas. Organizations around the world are working around the clock to transport supplies to the hundreds of thousands of people in need. ESRI is supporting these activities to achieve the best possible response given the complex circumstances.

Aeroterra S.A. is a privately held organization that since its creation in 1973 has been a leader of the geo-processing field in the Latin American market. As an exclusive distributor of ARC/INFO and ERDAS Systems in Argentina and Uruguay, Aeroterra has an installed base of over 2,500 licenses in more than 700 sites. According to studies by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (1995) and the Government of Canada (1997/98), Aeroterra accounts for more than 80% of the GIS software market in Argentina. The company is composed by a multi-disciplinary team of about 100 people fully dedicated to tasks related to geo-processing using the most advanced tools available for providing geo-information solutions to clients throughout the world. The company has several strategic alliances with international organizations and a strategically located network of distributors.