Jonathon Weiss, February 7, 2018, JonnyUAV, LLC | Hawke Multimedia
UAVs have been being used in emergency services for about 3 years now. The 2017 hurricane season has proved UAVs can assist ground efforts for search and rescue, damage assessments, and to take aerial photos of large amounts of areas at a time. UAVs can deliver rescue ropes, small first aid kits, life vest and other supplies to victims in hard to reach places where rescuers cannot yet reach. UAVs also are easier to deploy, more cost efficient, economically friendly and easier to obtain licensed pilots. They also can reach hard to access areas that standard helicopters cannot get to. Between buildings, near trees or power lines, and near tough places were the helicopter’s rotor-wash could be dangerous to the victims.
Emergency Management Agencies, fire departments, police departments, sheriff’s offices’ and more are utilizing UAVs in their operations. Let’s look at some examples; Natural disaster damage assessments can be done quickly, effectively and efficiently by using a UAVs ability to take high resolution, accurate photographs in both 4K HD images and video and FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) photos to assess overall damages and compromised public structures and other buildings. Fire services can utilize the UAVs ability to see in infrared to locate hot-spots on scene to target the worst areas of large industrial or residential fires and to see where the fire line is in a wildfire spreading over hundreds of acres. Sheriff offices’, police departments, and federal entities can use UAVs to search large grids to locate missing persons, chase fugitives through rough terrain, and follow suspect vehicles undetected. The uses for UAVs are almost endless.
UAVs could save thousands if not millions to agencies in man-hours, helicopter expenses, licensing processes, chopper fuel and any other expenses that can come up. No more waiting for the state or county to deploy a helicopter, or having the capability to do only one to two missions at a time due to lack of helicopters or pilots.
UAVs were deployed to Houston after Hurricane Harvey to access damages, monitor water levels, find victims in distress, and to monitor roads for safe travel and rescue operations. Among the groups that put up drones over Houston following Hurricane Harvey was one led by Dr. Robin Murphy, a professor of computer science at Texas A&M University and director of the university’s Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue. Her team flew 119 UAV missions over Houston using a range of drones. Here is an article from NBC News about how UAVs assisted the post-disaster rescue and recovery efforts following the 2017 Hurricanes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/hurricanes-show-why-drones-are-future-disaster-relief-ncna799961
The creation of UAVs has revolutionized the way we respond to these disasters, from massive hurricanes, to wildfires, to active shooters, to missing person searches and more. Creating and adopting a UAV program for your agency or county will be the next step into how you respond in your area, from keeping your responders safe, to providing faster response to victims in need after a disaster.
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