The drones play a pivotal role in the recovery of Milton and Hellene

When Hurricane Helene and Milton hit the southeastern United States, they left a trail of devastation in their wake. Roads, houses and parts of cities were swept away by torrential floods. Thousands of residents were left homeless and forced to shelter in community centers that lacked access to critical supplies and resources. One such shelter, a senior center in Marion, North Carolina, has received a lifeline from an unlikely source. For a little more than a week, a white, buzzing autonomous drone operated by Wing has been picking up prescription drugs, baby formula and other critical resources from a nearby Walmart Supercenter and delivering them to the senior center.

Walmart has been working with Wing for several years to implement a commercial drone delivery program, but federal regulations currently limit how far those drones can operate. In this case, however, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted temporary approval to extend Wing’s operation beyond visual line of sight so they could provide potentially life-saving supplies. People staying at the senior center can call Walmart Pharmacy and get their scripts filled. These prescriptions are then flown by drone in a package filled with other supplies requested by center staff. Benadryl and glucose tablets, which are critical for people with diabetes, are high on the list of requested items.

“We worked with Wing to quickly launch a drone operation at our Supercenter in Marion, NC to deliver critical supplies based on real-time needs, including prescriptions to those staying at a local shelter,” he said a Walmart spokesman. Popular Science.

Deliveries like these are just one of a growing number of ways drones are reshaping the way first responders and everyday residents help those affected by natural disasters. Although sophisticated professional drones have been used for years to assist in search and rescue and disaster relief operations, modern advances in cheaper and more widely available consumer-grade drones mean that there are more remotely operated winged aircraft being used in disaster areas than ever before. Here are some of the ways drones were used to respond to Hurricanes Helene and Milton in recent weeks.

First responders use drones to find survivors and assess damage

Drones began responding to Hurricanes Helene and Milton before they made landfall. In late September, while some Florida residents were packing their bags and planning evacuation routes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was simultaneously sending drones into the storm. The agency reportedly sent several unmanned aircraft systems, a 27-pound Altius-600 and a smaller Blackswift S0, to dive directly into the eye of the brewing storm to collect temperature readings, wind and pressure These readings provide crucial data to help NOAA chart the path and severity of a storm’s course.

Drones were also buzzing through the storm-filled streets once Helene and Milton touched down. Local officials and first responders worked with autonomous drone maker Skydio to supplement disaster response efforts. Officials, according to a report a Flying Magazineused its drones to assist in search and rescue missions and general damage assessment. The massive storms, which hit the Southeast back-to-back over several weeks, have caused more than $50 billion worth of damage. Helene alone claimed the lives of 220 people in six states. More than a hundred residents are still considered missing.

Many of the modern drones deployed by first responders over the past month are equipped with thermal imaging cameras. These cameras can help rescue teams detect missing people’s heart signatures that might otherwise be obscured by debris. At the same time, other high-resolution cameras have quickly captured real-time photos and videos of broken bridges, downed power lines and other crumbling infrastructure. The quick response and flexibility of these drones can help officials prioritize relief efforts and bring much-needed power and communications equipment back online. In Asheville, North Carolina, first responders partnered with drone startup Paladin to answer 911 calls and drop off emergency supplies like life jackets and Narcan. In a recent interview with TechCrunchPaladin CEO Divy Shrivastava says Paladin’s drone response was able to eliminate 10 to 25 percent of false alarms or erroneous 911 calls, which in turn gave emergency responders a greater capacity to address emergencies.

Civilian drone owners are helping their neighbors

But official government entities weren’t the only ones helping out with drones. The relative affordability and accessibility of today’s consumer drones has contributed to the rise of volunteer groups and everyday residents who deploy their own aircraft to disaster zones. One such volunteer organization, Texas-based First To Deploy, flew small drones over the Tennessee-North Carolina border to collect images of areas affected by large piles of debris. Images collected by drones and shared with the local store Fox 7 they show roads falling into rivers and an entire house seemingly swept away by the floods. The group, which says it works closely with law enforcement in disaster areas, also used its drones to identify “hot spots” littered with corpses.

“It’s absolute destruction,” said Chris Starnes, a First To Deploy drone operator Fox 7.

“I can’t compare it to anything I’ve personally seen in my lifetime other than Hurricane Katrina,” he added.

Another volunteer drone group called the Unmanned Search and Rescue (USAR) Drone Team, which normally helps find missing pets, reportedly deployed its drones in battered Asheville to survey the aftermath of a three-mile mudslide. By flying their drones overhead, USAR was able to track the origin of the landslide and document its destructive path. Mike Parziale, the group’s founder, used his DJI M350 Matrice drone to document the altered geography of the area to look for uprooted trees and other indicators that could point to areas at high risk of more landslides.

Drones contributing to potentially dangerous air congestion

All this increased air activity, however well-intentioned, is not without side effects. In a single day in late September, as first responders and volunteers rushed to help their neighbors in North Carolina, federal officials reported 30 air call events. Air traffic over the state, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation, increased by 300%. Drones, some of them deployed by everyday civilians without the proper operating licenses, increased that number.

Airspace congestion was so bad that the FAA issued temporary flight restrictions limiting drone activity in the areas in an effort to avoid collisions. DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg even released a video statement warning civilian drone pilots that they could face “criminal prosecution” if they flew too close to disaster zones. That announcement and confusion over the reason for the flight restrictions prompted a backlash from some local residents who argued the measures would prevent volunteers from delivering medicine or aid to people in need. Other, more conspiratorial observers falsely alleged that the flight restrictions were issued to prevent “citizen journalists” from documenting the chaos of the storm.

“I’ve been amazed at how a tiny kernel of some detail has been blown up on the Internet into something it’s not,” Buttigieg said during a recent interview on MSNBC.

Residents are turning consumer drones into utility vehicles

Hurricane relief efforts continue even long after the storm’s deadly winds subside. FEMA estimates that shelters have housed up to 13,000 people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the two storms. Many of these suddenly evicted residents will have a long road to recovery. Meanwhile, shelters require a steady flow of food, supplies and medicine to keep these people afloat. Agricultural company Bestway Ag quickly assembled a small fleet of drones to deliver food, baby formula and other supplies to about 100 people in mountainous regions of North Carolina that had access to major roads cut off. Using heavy-duty models typically used in agricultural settings, the company was able to deliver about two tons of food, water and medical supplies.

In another recent example, local farmers combined simple hobbyist drones and cut-up shopping carts to create makeshift DIY disaster response vehicles. One of those farmers, highlighted by the local outlet Fox 8he reportedly attached a 40-foot rope to a drone normally used to spray crop fields and instead used it to drop critical supplies into hard-to-reach areas.

“If my girls were hungry, I would want them fed,” said the farmer Fox 8.

Drones can improve disaster preparedness and recovery in the future

Researchers are also using drones to better prepare local officials for the next inedible disaster. A team of Texas A&M hurricane researchers is using high-resolution images of damage from 10 disasters in recent years to train a new AI model that can quickly and accurately assess the impact of a future storm The team reportedly recruited 130 high school volunteers to view and tag footage collected by the drones covering about 16,500 acres of affected land and roads.

Drone recovery responses like those tested by Walmart could also become more common. While the company will likely conclude its drone deliveries to the North Carolina senior center in the coming days, the company is confident that the lessons learned here can be applied to other areas in the future. And while commercial drone operators are still often limited to operating within visual line of sight, an FAA spokesman said. Popular Science they can grant temporary approvals of up to 30 days to effectively extend this interval. This approval process could be useful during disaster response situations.

“This drone delivery operation is a proof of concept that we want to use to explore the long-term applications of drone delivery in future relief efforts and hope to have a lasting positive impact,” the Walmart spokesperson said.