Alaska DOT & PF count on drones for emergency response in remote areas
ARROW, Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities’s new drone program, will enable remote communities to conduct BVLOS missions using UAS, allowing them to collect critical data for a shared statewide GIS. The data will be used in response to natural and man-made disasters affecting critical infrastructure in historically underserved communities. This is particularly important in Alaska, where many remote communities are vulnerable to natural disasters like earthquakes, wildfires, floods, and extreme weather events.
- My name is Clarence Daniel. I am the, uh, community development division
- director at AVCP. The Yukon-Kuskokwim
- Delta area is about the size of the
- state of Oregon. Our area is an isolated area.
- There are no roads in or out, so we rely
- on air transportation or river transportation.
- There are two, um, major rivers, uh, in
- our region. They are the l- pretty much the lifeline.
- So then in the winter we have the Kuskokwim Ice
- Road that is a,
- um, low-cost alternative to the high
- cost of air travel. One of the primary things I'd like to see
- is being able to develop a
- uniform safety data reporting system.
- We could use this data to establish apps for people.
- So if there was an ice road that was shut down, then it could
- show on the map, like the 511 does for the state
- highways. You know, if there's an open hole
- or if, uh, one of the rivers that the winter trails cross
- isn't frozen yet, that things like that can be
- flagged as hazards so that people know before they
- go that they would have to avoid those areas or go around
- those areas in order to, to be safe.
- When it comes to disaster response in, in our area, we could get our
- staff out to the village. They can go and fly the drone
- over, um, damaged infrastructure.
- They can fly it over
- possible homes that were damaged from the storms, that
- the drone can immediately get out
- and live stream to us here, or
- even in Anchorage, or even with DOT, or even with FEMA.
- That can really speed up the process of getting help to people that
- need it. It's... I'm, I'm so happy to see
- that becoming, soon becoming a reality
- through the partnership with DOT. Sky's the limit.
- We could all go all the way to the sun and back with, with what we
- can do.
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