State to develop drone program to better respond to disasters like Helene, Florence

RALEIGH, NC (WWAY) – A federal grant awarded Monday will enable state transportation officials to create a program that better guides the agency’s use of drones when it responds to natural disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Florence. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the award of a $1.1 million grant to the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Division of Aviation.

NCDOT was one of 47 recipients nationwide to receive a grant through the competitive Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation Grants Program, or SMART. The program is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“We are thrilled,” said Nick Short, interim director of NCDOT’s Aviation Division. “This will make us better prepared for natural disasters. With what we saw during Helene, Florence and other natural disasters, when you’re not able to use highway infrastructure to get goods and assets to an area, it seriously limits your ability to provide life-saving care and quick response to people in need.”

Aviation staff will use the grant to develop a program that would use the ‘drone-in-a-box’ technology in which an autonomous drone can be placed in a community before a storm and then deployed remotely to start collecting images of damage and deliver emergency supplies.

“With the ‘drone in a box,’ we can place a drone with medicine like insulin on the side of a road and then those supplies are there and ready to be deployed right away,” Short said. “We will be able to deploy the drone remotely, so we can begin collecting data and delivering supplies without having to wait on someone to respond by driving into the area. In doing so, we’re also removing the risk of putting people in further danger during a natural disaster.”

Short said expediting disaster response comes at a crucial time as scientists predict that climate change is expected to continue delivering storms that are more severe and more frequent.

Aviation officials hope to build upon what the agency was able to accomplish during Helene, when the division and its partners with the N.C. Department of Public Safety, the National Guard and the Civil Air Patrol were able to use drones, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to gather thousands of images of damage in places too difficult to reach by land.

Those images were vital to help responders better understand what they needed to do to help people during the recovery effort in Western North Carolina.

The Division of Aviation will use the grant money to pilot the ‘drone in a box’ response system in Lumberton. Like many mountain communities, the Robeson County town is no stranger to natural disasters, as evidenced by what happened during Hurricane Florence in 2018.

Nearly half of Lumberton was flooded, causing damage to many homes. Across Robeson County, dozens of roads were flooded, and several of them had sections or culverts washed out. Two years earlier, Hurricane Matthew caused similar flooding to Lumberton and along Interstate 95 over the Lumber River.

“These storms tend to impact people in historically disadvantaged communities where roads and other infrastructure become inundated faster and for longer periods of time than many other communities,” Short said. “That was true in Lumberton during Hurricane Florence and is one of the main reasons we’re piloting this program there.”

The Division of Aviation will work closely with Lumberton and the surrounding communities because public feedback will be important as the agency studies the issue and develops a better response program, Short said.

“This grant covers all the studies we’ll have to do, from researching the environment at these locations as well as all the community involvement we’ll be doing and feedback we’ll be seeking,” he said.

While this program will be conducted in Lumberton, state aviation officials expect to evaluate the technology for disaster response deployment at other locations in North Carolina.

For more information on the federal grant program, please visit the USDOT’s web page.