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Falcon UAV drones assisting with flooding in Colorado – until FEMA stops them

September 17, 2013

A few days ago we shared the Boulder, Colorado crisis response map with you, as the area is continuing to be inundated with rain and flooding.  As they continue to fight the water, another interesting battle is emerging: Falcon UAV against the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Falcon has a hand-launched drone aircraft that can fly for roughly an hour and automatically generate very accurate maps of the ground.  Here is a quick video showing how the drone is launched:

As for the results, you can see a snippet of their work in Colorado below or download the KMZ file here (warning: 500MB) to see it in Google Earth.  It’s quite remarkable, especially considering the speed with which the imagery can be captured, georeferenced and shared.

falcon-uav

Unfortunately, FEMA has told them they’re no longer allowed to fly the drone. In fact, they were told that their “request to fly drones was not only denied but more specifically we were told by FEMA that anyone flying drones would be arrested.”

As IEEE Spectrum is quick to point out, we’re only hearing one side of the story.  FEMA may have a very legitimate reason for grounding the drone.  However, considering all circumstances it seems that it would be quite valuable to have that aircraft capturing fresh imagery for the area.

I’m hoping that FEMA releases a statement of some sort about this issue, as it’s reflecting quite poorly on them so far.  Check out the full article for yourself over on IEEE Spectrum.

Filed Under: Environment, Flying, Sightseeing, Video Tagged With: boulder, colorado, falcon uav, fema, flooding

Google publishes Crisis Response map for Boulder, Colorado

September 13, 2013

Similar to maps that Google has released in the past for places like Alberta and Moore, they’ve just published a Crisis Response map to assist with the flooding in Boulder, Colorado.

You can view the map online here, or grab this KML file to view much of the data inside of Google Earth.

boulder

The map includes information about area shelters, road closures, weather advisories and more.

If you’re in or near the affected area, this is a valuable resource to have access to.  You’re also encouraged to visit the Boulder Office of Emergency Management, City of Longmont Emergency Information and the Colorado Department of Transportation sites for additional information.

The team behind Google.org does some amazing work, and I was fortunate enough to meet a few of the people behind it when I was at the Where Conference last year.  Learning more about what they do was eye-opening, and they continue to release valuable resources like the one we’re showing you today.

(via Google Maps Mania)

Filed Under: Science, Sightseeing, Weather Tagged With: boulder, crisis response, flooding, google Crisis response



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