How Drones and Reality Capture are Helping Families Affected by Hurricane Ian

The $40 billion in damages left by Hurricane Ian

Over 100,000 homes were damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022. The storm was the fifth strongest to ever hit the U.S., causing severe wind and flooding impacts, loss of life and significant property damage.

The aftermath of the hurricane presented multiple problems. How long would it take for families to receive aid? How can first responders know when an area is safe to explore? How do individuals best locate missing friends and families?

Fortunately, Drone Cadets was there to provide support to emergency responders.

Drone Cadets empowers underserved communities around the world

Drone Cadets, based in Middletown, New York, is a member of the Aerial Systems Group International (ASGI) Consortium. Its co-founder Tony Reid, who also co-founded Drone Cadets, created the organization to give educational and professional STEM opportunities to young people in underserved communities. It provides drone technology training and real-world operations experience to individuals as young as eight years old.

Since Hurricane Ian, DroneDeploy has been collaborating with Drone Cadets to expedite relief and has donated use of the DroneDeploy platform for recovery efforts. Drone Cadets students have been harnessing the power of DroneDeploy’s online mapping capabilities in damaged areas.

One of the students who used the mapping program well was Faustino “Tino” Taguja. He gathered more than 400 pictures of the affected area and sent them to DroneDeploy, which analyzed the information in a flash. Tino set up a mapping mission on the mobile app, selected a region of interest, collected and uploaded the data to Drone Deploy – and within hours he had a 2D and 3D map of the area.

- Henze Gustave, Chief Metaverse Officer, Drone Cadets

Drone Cadets and DroneDeploy together can change lives

By creating photos and maps efficiently through DroneDeploy, Drone Cadets and other organizations can expect that:

• insurance claims for hurricane relief will be expedited
• areas will be quickly evaluated to discharge first responders, and
• efforts to locate missing persons will be bolstered.

Our collaboration with Drone Cadets continues to make positive change and we look forward to working with them in the future.

Learn more about Drone Cadets and their mission here.

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