NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 43

AS SOON AS THE
SKIES CLEARED
ABOVE HOUSTON,
A SMALL ARMY OF
unmanned aerial robots took flight
above the city's deluged streets to
assess the impact of Hurricane Harvey's
assault.
Their missions were as varied as the
groups that launched them. Oil and
gas companies used drones to peer
in at hard-to-reach flooded facilities
and fuel tanks. Insurance companies
deployed the robots by the hundreds
to swiftly inspect damaged properties,
exponentially speeding up the claims
process. Union-Pacific flew drones to
inspect flooded rail yards and miles
of track. State agencies used drones to
take stock of damage to roads, bridges,
and other critical infrastructure like
water treatment facilities. Local, state,
and federal emergency responders also
deployed drones, as did dozens of ad
hoc rescue volunteers and relief organizations, to search for storm victims,
map flooded areas, test for dangerous
pollutants in the water, and help crews
navigate through a downtown transformed by 50 inches of rain in just a
few days.
"I don't think it's an exaggeration to
say that the hurricane response will be
looked back upon as a landmark in the
evolution of drone usage in this country," Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta
said at a conference on September 6, a
few days into the recovery efforts. He
called the role the robots played in the
hurricane response "transformative."
The FAA tightly restricts airspace
during a disaster to better coordinate

aircraft and prioritize emergency
response. After the storm, it issued at
least 137 special permits for unmanned
flight operations to various groups
involved in response and recovery
around greater Houston, according to
an FAA spokesperson. While unmanned
aerial systems, or UAS, have long
proved their worth in various tasks,
Harvey is perhaps the first time the
robots have been deployed for such
varied purposes all at once on such a
grand scale.
"After all this, after the hundreds
and thousands of flights, this event
proves that using drones in emergency
response can be done safely, effectively,
and can do a lot of good," said Coitt
Kessler, leader of the Austin (Texas)
Fire Department's Robotics Emergency
Deployment Team. "It was also a great
reminder of how much we don't know
and still need to learn and improve."

"He told me,'I'm
getting calls left and
right for requests to fly
drones. I don't
know anything
about drones.
Can you handle it?'"

MANY NEEDS, MANY USES
Kessler, a member of the technical committee for the proposed NFPA 2400,
Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Used
for Public Safety Operations, has a better
sense than most of what went right
and what didn't during the first stages
of drone deployment in Houston postHarvey. For four days, from August 30
to September 2, he worked at the Texas
Air Operations Center in Austin, as the
state's first-ever UAS coordinator-a
position invented pretty much on the fly
as Harvey bore down on the Gulf Coast.
The night of August 29, as Kessler
packed to travel to Houston to man a
boat rescue team, the Texas Division
of Emergency Management called to
tell him they had other plans. The next
morning, Kessler reported to the air
operations center to find it bustling with
senior military command, FAA officials,
and state and federal emergency coordinators, most of whom were concerned
with various manned aircraft recovery
missions. Brett Dixon, the manned air
coordinator for Texas Task Force 1, called
Kessler over. "He told me, 'I'm getting
calls left and right for requests to fly
drones. I don't know anything about
drones. Can you handle it?'" Kessler said.
He knew he was entering uncharted
territory. "There are literally no documents or anything that lays out or even
officially mentions a job called a UAS
coordinator, but they told me I was it,"
he recalled. He set up shop at a long
table with a laptop, cell phone, and
notebook and got to work.
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - November/December 2017
