Drone technology helped speed the process for approving the state’s federal disaster declaration after ex-Typhoon Halong. That was the message from Stan Caldwell, the director of a federal department of transportation program that gives grants to agencies to pursue projects that improve safety and transportation. He was in Anchorage Monday to meet with officials working on drone technology.
The program is called SMART, which stands for Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation.
While visiting Anchorage, he said a federal grant allowed the state to use drones to provide real-time data and photos when ex-Typhoon Halong wreaked havoc in Western Alaska last month.
Caldwell says that immediate information expedited the Disaster Declaration approved by President Donald Trump in October, making federal funds available to assist with the response and recovery.
"These recovery efforts are now happening in days, not months, because they're able to make these assessments,” Caldwell said.
The federal department of transportation also awarded Alaska $1.13 million in January for avalanche mitigation technology along the Seward Highway, which runs between Anchorage and Seward. It’s one of the busiest roadways in the state, and although crashes in the area have decreased in recent years, fatalities haven’t.
Alaska is at the forefront of drone technology, Caldwell said. The state’s Department of Transportation tested using drones last year to deploy and detonate explosives to trigger controlled avalanches. Caldwell says drones could be used in rural areas around the country for a variety of purposes.
“We're putting it out into these cold environmental conditions, and making sure that it's still robust enough to work, and then you throw a typhoon on top of it and show that it works,” he said.
Ryan Marlow, the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities emerging technologies coordinator, said recent storms have shown opportunity for drone innovation, and that the technology is much faster, and cheaper, than traditional aircraft.
The drones can be flown remotely, Marlow said, which avoids putting people in potentially dangerous situations. The drones have thermal cameras, and can be viewed in real-time.
“We're really bridging that gap of equity with a lot of these technologies,” Marlow said.
Several other states have also received grants through the same federal program for various projects, including expanding infrastructure for charging electric vehicles in Colorado.
