BENTON – The county is continuing to progress and evolve with the announcement today that they are now adding drone deployment complete with infrared and thermal imaging to their already impressive list of emergency response capabilities.
The equipment was funded by way of a private donation (more details will be released in a following story) and is set to be housed by the offices of the Marshall County Rescue Squad and Emergency Management.
Officials received test drones last month and are currently training to operate the devices. Marshall County Rescue Squad Chief Curt Curtner was not available for a full comment but did say he plans to initiate a public awareness campaign and clarifies that the device is not going to be used to ‘spy’ on anyone, but will be used for training and search and rescue operations, as well as other being available to other agencies.
Responders across the nation are deploying the new technology to assist in their efforts and have already credited life-saving successes to their use.
Drones were deployed in the aftermath of a tornado outbreak in Oklahoma where the devices were used to locate trapped survivors, sending their location by way of GPS coordinates to responders on the ground.
Additionally, drones have been used successfully in a number of other conditions during search and rescue efforts where ground and water conditions are not favorable, are treacherous or impassable.
Other response agencies such as fire departments have been using drones to identify hot spots and locate victims in structure fires as an alternative to subjecting emergency response personnel to hazardous environments unnecessarily.
Drone use is becoming increasingly popular both in the civil and private sector. Unmanned Aircraft Systems come in a variety of shapes and sizes and may have a wingspan as large as a Boeing 737 or smaller than a radio-controlled model airplane.
According to the FAA, the first authorized use of unmanned aircraft in the NAS in 1990. Since then, the agency has authorized limited use of UAS for important missions in the public interest, such as firefighting, disaster relief, search and rescue, law enforcement, border patrol, military training and testing and evaluation.
Curtner said he is proud to see his agency continue to progress and evolve, utilizing the most current technology available to offer local citizens the most effective call response possible. We will update this story as soon as more information is available by way of the public awareness campaign.