After receiving criticism over its replacement of post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with pre-Hurricane Katrina images, Google has updated Google Earth with higher resolution photos of New Orleans as it currently is.

According to a post on the Google blog by John Hanke, Director of Google Maps/Local/EarthGoogle, Google originally switched back to the pre-Hurricane Katrina imagery back in September primarily because the photos were of much higher quality and resolution. Post-Hurricane Katrina imagery, instead, was stored on a dedicated site.

Even though post-Katrina images were still available on the dedicated site and the changes took place all the way back in September, Google received criticism over the move this weekend, something Hanke claims Google was “a bit surprised by.”

In response to this, Google has begun to speed up processing 2006 aerial photography for the Gulf Cost area, and will update the imagery in the next Google Earth release. The new imagery will be “equal in resolution to the data it is replacing.”

Following criticism over its pre-Katrina imagery, Google has begun to refresh aerial view of the Gulf Coast with new, current, and high resolution images.