FEMA Grounds Private Drones That Were Helping To Map Boulder Floods 356
First time accepted submitter MrMagooAZ writes "An interesting article about a questionable reaction by FEMA in response to the flooding in Colorado. It seems a small firm was working free of charge with County officials to use drones to map the area and provide near-real-time maps of the flood damage. When FEMA took control of operations one of their first acts appears to have been to not only ground the drones, but threaten the operators. 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you?'"
The drone model in question has permits from the FAA to be flown around even. The drones were replaced with manned craft that, due to the terrain, where unable to fly low enough to make useful maps.
Freedom in America is a Thing of the Past (Score:2, Insightful)
.. as is individual efforts and coming together in crisis..Technology *is* powerful so of course individuals can't use it, no matter if it is a time of community crisis or not.
Not autonomous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we stop referring to anything that is remotely controlled as a drone?
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Can we stop referring to anything that is remotely controlled as a drone?
No. Otherwise we'll have to get into all sorts of grey areas. Is it a drone if it follows a pre-programmed flight path? is it a drone if it can be sent waypoints "on the fly"? At some point or another the unit is remotely controlled.
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since there's a perfectly good word with an identical meaning, use "unmanned aircraft" for any without a human on board. Us "RC" to mean remotely controlled. And use "drone" to mean weaponized or self guided.
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because otherwise, it's simply an RC aircraft. They've been around for 30+ years. "Drones" are new, "RC" is old. But the meanings are the same, depending on who you are talking to.
+1
Since there's a perfectly good word with an identical meaning, use "unmanned aircraft" for any without a human on board. Use "RC" to mean remotely controlled. And use "drone" to mean weaponized or self guided.
I'm of the opinion that "Drone" should refer to autonomous (flying) vehicle. The question of it having a weapons or surveillance payload is irrelevant.
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:5, Insightful)
RC aircraft have been around for 70 years. I saw a 1930 add for the equipment while going through an old magazine.
The difference between RC and drone is simple a drone is a very remotely piloted craft. where as an RC craft must be kept in visual range of the pilot. (ie a drone is flown miles from the pilot)
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. What's your noun to define, in general, a remote controlled unmanned vehicle?
We'll start a campaign to have your word replace "drone" in the Oxford English, Merriam Webster, Collins dictionaries immediately.
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. What's your noun to define, in general, a remote controlled unmanned vehicle?
Toy helicopter.
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I should say that every article in the last month that I've seen mention 'drones' has been about devices I would call 'toy helicopters'. None of them have been about the Predator drones we have carrying missiles in the Middle East.
Maybe this one is about real drone-style craft.
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Even for fixed wing aircraft that are remote control? Okay!
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Sure. What's your noun to define, in general, a remote controlled unmanned vehicle?
We'll start a campaign to have your word replace "drone" in the Oxford English, Merriam Webster, Collins dictionaries immediately.
Before the word "drone" really took off, they were called UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle).
(Drone is actually a broader term that could refer to land or sea based semi/fully-autonomous vehicles.)
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I think "drone" is particular stupid when applied to the Predator. Since for the entire history of the English language, a "drone" was bee without a sting that contributed nothing to the hive except once in a while one of them would give a new queen a momentary thrill.
Call them R/C aircraft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:4, Funny)
Sure. What's your noun to define, in general, a remote controlled unmanned vehicle?
My wife following OnStar turn-by-turn directions in her Chevy. = starlost
But that's another story.
Re:Not autonomous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. What's your noun to define, in general, a remote controlled unmanned vehicle?
We'll start a campaign to have your word replace "drone" in the Oxford English, Merriam Webster, Collins dictionaries immediately.
ROV
The taxonomy isn't actually that difficult to understand:
Drone (Unmanned vehicle)
ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle)
RPV (Remotely Piloted Vehicle)
UAV (Unmanned Ariel Vehicle)
AV (Autonomous Vehicle)
Technically, these things are Drones, but that's about the least specific thing you could call them.
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That would make a Cruise missile just another drone. I don't think so.
Well... (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
That's because we have a big US Defense Drones (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, your little, puny drones are no match for our US Defense Contractor drones that have a staff of thousands and bases all over the world. Trust us, we're much more capable of doing this job once we get the emergency congressional appropriations bill through and sign a new contract with the firm to load the special cameras we should be able to start mapping in about two years. By then we'll have this situation well in hand.
"Every Nation gets the government it deserves" - Joseph de Maistre
Re:That's because we have a big US Defense Drones (Score:5, Informative)
I cheated and read the article. They WERE US Defense Contractor drones that FEMA shut down.
Re:That's because we have a big US Defense Drones (Score:5, Insightful)
I cheated and read the article. They WERE US Defense Contractor drones that FEMA shut down.
That were replaced by manned aircraft that couldn't fly low enough to be as useful. So to summarize,: FEMA came in and replaced something that was probably cheaper, more effective, and safer with something that was more expensive, considerably more dangerous, and useless.
And we wonder why the government can't pass a budget, let alone one that lowers spending.
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The best way to clear airspace is to... clear the airspace.
No one wants a UAV thru their helecopter windscreen.
Re:That's because we have a big US Defense Drones (Score:5, Interesting)
On Thursday afternoon while all National Guard aircraft were grounded due to weather Falcon UAV was proud to have been the only aircraft that was able to take flight to support the flood efforts in Lyons.
So nothing was flying that day. Except for the drones.
Just as Falcon UAV was off to another damage assessment in Lyons, Colorado we were requested to standdown for National Guard helicopters now supporting evacuation efforts.
So they stopped flying due to this request.
Enter FEMA.......
Early Saturday morning Falcon UAV was heading up to Lyons to complete a damage assessment mapping flight when we received a call from our Boulder EOC point of contact who notified us that FEMA had taken over operations and our request to fly drones was not only denied but more specifically we were told by FEMA that anyone flying drones would be arrested. Not being one to bow to federal bureaucrats we still went up to Lyons to do a site survey for how we can conduct a mission in the near future to provide an adequate damage assessment to this storm raveged community.
While we were up there we noticed that Civil Air Patrol and private aircraft were authorized to fly over the small town tucked into the base of Rockies. Unfortunately due to the high terrain around Lyons and large turn radius of manned aircraft they were flying well out of a useful visual range and didn't employ cameras or live video feed to support the recovery effort. Meanwhile we were grounded on the Lyons high school football field with two Falcons that could have mapped the entire town in less than 30 minutes with another few hours to process the data providing a near real time map of the entire town.
So helicopters were not the issue. The CAP as well as civilians had planes in the air. Do you really think the national guard would have wanted civilians in the air if they were conducting helicopter flights? If FEMA would have had any intelligence they would have given them the 30 minutes to image the area. This had nothing to do with helicopter safety. It was some ass at FEMA on a power trip and not wanting to look bad because they couldn't have done this. Or best case, who ever made the decision at FEMA didn't want to be held accountable if something went wrong.
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had taken over operations and our request to fly drones was not only denied but more specifically we were told by FEMA that anyone flying drones would be arrested.
Diabolical Reply: We have state national guard standing by, authorized to utilize deadly force, against anyone attempting to arrest any drone operators or otherwise disrupt our drone operations.
Re:That's because we have a big US Defense Drones (Score:5, Insightful)
This.
I honestly don't think FEMA came in and told them to leave just to be bossy. They are in charge of the area, and having drones flying around their airspace is just one more thing they have to worry about / deal with / be at risk of running into. Could this have been handled better? Yes. It sounds like the drones were providing a valuable service, and in hindsight it would probably make sense for FEMA to try to collaborate here.
The most likely scenario in my mind is that FEMA has a plan on how they will handle this situation. The plan comes from tons of experience with disaster relief. While these [don't call them] drones provide functionality that is useful, they do not know how to work them in with the things they know they have to do. If they take time to figure out how to leverage the option available they risk dropping the ball on issues that they know are time critical. And we all know how well that will go over in the press and popular opinion.
I think it is unfortunate that they were not able to be more flexible with their plan - obviously all plans have to react to the realities of the situation, so they have some flexibility, just not enough in this case. It will be interesting to see if they do a postmortem and add [don't call them] drones to their future response plans.
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Parent post would sound like a reasonable defense of FEMA, until this part:
The most likely scenario in my mind is that FEMA has a plan on how they will handle this situation. The plan comes from tons of experience with disaster relief.
The problem with this logic is that the Colorado events are being described as a 500 year flood. That is more than twice the age of the USA, and more than ten times the age of FEMA. They may have tons of experience handling small stuff, but this is a megaton situation and they are trying to treat it like they can just scale up from dealing with a broken levee, or something. FEMA has absolutely, positively NO EXPERIENCE in dealing wit
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Parent post would sound like a reasonable defense of FEMA, until this part...
So it was a reasonable defense of FEMA until the very first sentence?
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The problem with this logic is that the Colorado events are being described as a 500 year flood. That is more than twice the age of the USA, and more than ten times the age of FEMA.
The trick to this is that as a federal agency FEMA doesn't just handle floods in Boulder county, Colorado. It supports floods in the whole USA. So while it might be the first flood of that magnitude in that spot during FEMA's tenure, it's experienced 500 year floods elsewhere, as well as more frequent floods of similar magnitude in various bits of the USA.
This is much, much worse than Katrina, and they really managed to fuck that up.
How is this worse than Katrina? Gallons, depth of flood, people affected?
You do realize that there's lots of other floods, right? How about the floodi
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The floods in Colorado are in narrow, steep canyons. They are destroying infrastructure in ways where it won't be repairable: roads, power and water lines, cell towers, etc will have to be rebuilt from scratch. Not only is pavement being ripped away, but road beds are disappearing. In places the bedrock is being reshaped.
Mississippi floods are just a lot of water and some silt. What is happening in Colorado is day after day of walls of water mixed with battering rams accelerating down thousand foot drops i
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One of the most important parts of emergency response is to be flexible to developments. FEMA has repeatedly demonstrated that they lack this ability.
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What this sounds like, is that there is at least one too many drones sitting behind a FEMA desk incapable of doing anything useful, like maybe coordinating an on-going, effective mapping operation that FEMA cannot do with the logistics support of rescue and evac that FEMA is supposed to be able to do.
Apparently the lessons of Katrina have not been well learned.
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Yes, because flying low and making vertical landings to drop supplies or pick up survivors is useless.
Yes, I am a "drone" pilot (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I fly them, and work with the engineers who design them. These things, and more specifically, the people who advocate for them, are a menace. They have no semblance of airworthiness, are not designed to be safe in the airspace, and are generally (the small ones) flown by people who have neither the training nor the operating procedures to safely fly them. There's a reason the global hawk costs $200M and the reaper $60M. That because more than a million engineering hours has been put into each to make t
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First off, the air force drones cost so much because they are high tech defense contracts and fully sized airplanes lacking only a cockpit and light years beyond anything in the article called a "drone". you're comparing a luxury equipped privately owned 747-800 personal jet with a 15th hand Piper Cub. They also are capable of fully autonomous flight. the article drones are just R/C planes with a gyro stabilized camera. the military drones are huge and will take out a house or two if they crash. the article
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RTFA. It does not take long for a company that knows what it is doing to do the kind of aerial survey that can tell the choppers where the victims are. Especially when the UAVs can be used when the choppers can't fly.
There is no way in hell that it would not have been possible to schedule UAV surveys and chopper flights safely. But somebody sitting behind a FEMA desk does not have enough imagination to figure it out.
Evidently the pruning after the Katrina catastrophe did not get rid of all the deadwood
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For safety, using all the tools available to gauge the areas of greatest concern would have gained much more than shutting down everything they don't directly control.
I ha
What Do You Expect? It's FEMA. (Score:2, Funny)
Wait... yes I do. Never.
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Actually, they did pretty well during the Mississippi River flooding in 1993.
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Hurricane responses have been abysmal. New Orleans was nothing short of tragedy. Etc.
Re:What Do You Expect? It's FEMA. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What Do You Expect? It's FEMA. (Score:5, Insightful)
"FEMA does pretty well on any number of smaller disasters, but more things go wrong in big disasters..."
But see, that's the whole point. Their REASON FOR EXISTENCE is basically big disasters. If they can't do that well (and arguably, they have demonstrated that they can't), they should be disbanded and the money redistributed to the states, which would at least do no worse.
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Small disasters are handled by mid level management who are somewhat competent. The big disasters they call in the high level bureaucrats to handle it and those are the truly incompetent ones. Actually they are really just politicians and good at kissing ass and things like that but not good at handling disasters.
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Especially when most news outlets are owned by media moguls with a vested interest in making the government look bad, so they get leverage to deregulate and thus transfer more of its power to themselves.
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You'll note that they seem to do the poorest job in areas where people were told to evacuate, but didn't for whatever reason. I think there might be a connection.
Re:What Do You Expect? It's FEMA. (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll note that they seem to do the poorest job in areas where people were told to evacuate, but didn't for whatever reason. I think there might be a connection.
I think there is a bigger connection between "FEMA not taking over an incident" and "Governor of state refusing to ask for aide from FEMA when it would have done the most good." You know, like three days before Katrina made landfall and everything could have been staged while the roads were still passable and stuff, instead of several days after and the police of a major city involved fled in panic.
Now, the company who is trying to make themselves look good has claimed that CAP didn't carry cameras or video. Yes, CAP has an entire ES qualification dealing with aerial photography (i.e., they were almost certainly carrying cameras) but are hindered in real time video by managing a data link of sufficient bandwidth. The FCC rules prohibit use of cell phones (and data) while airborne, so it's not just a case of slapping a cell data card in a laptop and firing off the data. That's not to say that GIIEP [capmembers.com] should be as stupidly complex as it is, however. Forcing all data through one military system with associated military level authentication and sucky bandwidth is a mistake, but the approved cell data cards are not generally available as far as I know.
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The funny thing about disasters is that they are disastrous.
Know what else is disastrous? Public outcry from people who have no idea what it might take to respond to a large scale disaster.
No one REALLY wants to pay for emergency preparation. How many people do you know who have no appreciable food / water / emergency supplies, emergency plans in place, and conduct any kind of training or rehersals with their families? Most people have no real will to prepare themselves, and that mentality shows in governme
Re:What Do You Expect? It's FEMA. (Score:4, Informative)
Hurricane Sandy. Even Governor Christie (GOP) complemented [thehill.com] the Obama administration on its response. Which incurred a political cost. So I don't think he made his comments lightly.
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Severe, local disasters (e.g., New Orleans) have been where FEMA has pretty much stunk.
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If it were me, I'd wait until after the hurricane to give my praise.
Could this be due to the helicopter operations? (Score:5, Interesting)
Speculation on my part...
There are a large number of military helicopters operating in the area carrying relief supplies and evacuating people and all sorts of other activities. They can get on the radio and tell other (human) traffic in the area to get out of the way. I'm betting this drone can't respond to such verbal requests.
So if I was FEMA and I was tasked with coordinating all of these helicopter flights I might also say no to any drones I wasn't positive wouldn't be accidentally running into a helicopter full of evacuees.
I'm curious if there is a current NOTAM requiring special clearance to fly, or to obey extra rules in the area (like a specific radio frequency). If there is and the drone isn't following them, it is in violation.
Re:Could this be due to the helicopter operations? (Score:5, Informative)
Bah, hate replying to my own comment, there is a NOTAM: http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_3_4481.html
"No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered by this NOTAM (except as described)."
Reason for NOTAM : TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR LARIMER COUNTY FLOODING SAR
So the drone operators are in violation of FAA rules.
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Re:Could this be due to the helicopter operations? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that's what the article says, but you might have to know some things about FAA regs for them to make sense.
"It has public safety flight approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly in some parts of Colorado."
They most likely have a conditional certificate to fly only in particular areas of low traffic/population for an experimental drone. That's similar to having a pilots license (approval to fly a plane), or even a drivers license (approval to drive a car).
NOTAM's, or NOTice to AirMen are temporary restrictions on ALL flight operators. Think of them as a construction detour in your car, or a bridge washed out barricade. A common NOTAM might be that a runway is closed for resurfacing, or that a chuck of airspace is blocked off for an air show.
So while they may have general approval to fly, the NOTAM cancels that for the specific area covered. Most likely the FAA has delegated to FEMA the ability to control all flights in this box as they coordinate SAR, Search and Rescue operations.
So to extend my car analogy, it's like there's a washed out bridge from a flood, and they put up a barricade across the road while they tried to recuse someone from the flood waters and these people simply drove around the barricade and said "we're here to help!". The answer was get back on the other side of the barricade, or be arrested.
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So to extend my car analogy, it's like there's a washed out bridge from a flood, and they put up a barricade across the road while they tried to recuse someone from the flood waters and these people simply drove around the barricade and said "we're here to help!". The answer was get back on the other side of the barricade, or be arrested.
And what happens if those people really were more capable of helping than the government which is threatening arrest? After all, trying to rescue someone is not quite the same as actually rescuing someone.
UAVs could have been hampering rescue operations (Score:5, Insightful)
And what happens if those people really were more capable of helping than the government which is threatening arrest? After all, trying to rescue someone is not quite the same as actually rescuing someone.
A little bit of context. Rescue operations were then ongoing, in fact what is now deemed the largest aerial rescue operation since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 [yahoo.com]. More than 700 people were evacuated by air.
The rescue operations also included the town of Lyons, Colorado which is the same location where the UAVs were operating.
It is not inconceivable given the scale of the rescue operations that the UAVs were impeding the helicopters. And to use your analogy, the helicopters were actively 'rescuing someone' compared to UAVs which were... mapping. You can draw your own conclusions which is more important.
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Exactly correct, and why I hate the concept of drones (or other pilotless aircraft) in our airspace - they violate that prime directive of VFR flying, "See and be seen". An RPV or drone simply can't scan the sky for other aircraft, and frankly have a lot less to lose from not seeing another aircraft than a manned plane.
Re:Could this be due to the helicopter operations? (Score:5, Informative)
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Ah, thanks for the geographic correction.
I wasn't aware any counties had delegated authority from the FAA, I've only ever seen that given to other federal agencies (like FEMA), or sometimes state level agencies. Did Boulder County actually have the ability to approve such a thing in the first place?
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Did Boulder County actually have the ability to approve such a thing in the first place?
No. The text of the NOTAM says "FORT COLLINS DISPATCH CENTER" is in charge of the authorizations through Denver ARTCC. Wikipedia tells us that "Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality in and the county seat of Larimer County, Colorado".
TFRs are issued by the FAA upon the request of civil agencies and the civil agencies are given control. Some are long term (NCAA football game TFRs, for example, under a blanket overarching TFR.)
Re:Could this be due to the helicopter operations? (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently you didn't even read the NOTAM.
"Altitude: From the surface up to and including 13000 feet MSL"
I actually got the wrong NOTAM, which is why the date is wrong. The right one is http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_3_4333.html and was issued back on September 14th. It says "Altitude: From the surface up to and including 11500 feet MSL"
Re:Could this be due to the helicopter operations? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I understand why you libertarians are all up in arms, but think how MUCH worse it would be if some helicopter goes to land and its rotors get jacked up chopping through some quad copter that nobody saw was there... suddenly drones would require a license or some other horrible restrictions.
All you knee jerking reactionaries blow right past the safety issues that you assume won't happen. What's more important, knowing where the water is or getting the people out safely? At first glance I was annoyed the government was putting in seemingly silly restrictions, but after the first mention of SA R helicopter landings i understood perfectly the rationale. You can't reasonably control the independent drone operators, so you can't be sure there won't be a collision that could KILL people. Yeah, I'll ground the drones.
Now, civilian cooperation and outreach to create registered or trained disaster drone operators that can follow the safety guidelines and will ground their drones on command or when out of communication is the logical next step. Don't knee jerk into uselessness, use that brain to find a better way :)
AC cause I'm a lazy bastard who never logs in
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What height is a helicopter at when it lands, moron?
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It's pretty standard when they expect a lot of SAR helicopter operations.
Problem: Okay... well, it's now day four. Everyone who needed rescuing is now dead, or nearly so. Sooo... I can assume then the entire area is now swarming with helicopters? Oh wait... didn't the article say they didn't have any helicopters, only fixed wing aircraft... and they couldn't effectively map the area out as a result?
Well... I'm sure they must be the new invisible stealth helicopters the government has.
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So if I was FEMA and I was tasked with coordinating all of these helicopter flights I might also say no to any drones I wasn't positive wouldn't be accidentally running into a helicopter full of evacuees.
I have a relative who works with the FAA regarding drones. They cannot be flown in US airspace without someone either on the ground or in a chase plane to keep it in line-of-sight at all times. You may find this interesting: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42718.pdf [fas.org]
I don't think there was much danger of one hitting a helicopter if those are the restrictions on their operation.
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That's just what they want you to think.
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I hope you get modded funny.
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Local news say, YES, it's so the drones will not interefere with helicopter rescue operations:
http://www.9news.com/news/article/355477/188/Colorado-Floods-Myths-debunked [9news.com]
(The segment also covers several other rumors so all you tin-foil-hat types need to go back to spotting Elvis interviewing aliens in Area 51)
Cheers,
Dave
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The problem with them is that even if the decision was justified, what justification is there to issue a threat of arrest before a volunteer makes even th slightest sign of protest?
Going directly to a threat against someone with no history of animosity is usually the sign of an unjustifiable demand.
Typical government thinking. (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is not in the written procedure STOP IT NOW!!!!
Seriously. They have a procedure they have to go through and follow to the letter. There is no room for innovation or individual thinking when it comes to Federal agencies. You deviate from written procedure you get written up or lose your job.
I have run into it enough times in action to know this was probably the case.
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To fix the previous 'screw-up'?
For all we know the new procedures will result in people burning in the next similar crash. The girl that was run over was covered in firefighting foam and likely already dead.
Can't fly low enough for mapping? (Score:2)
That statement about manned aircraft not being suitable for mapping was brain-torturing nonsense.
They've been used for mapping for generations and you can even make useful maps from _orbit_.
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Biased article is biased.
Is there anything government does well? (Score:2)
Beside overspend, run up deficits, and generally behave according to the Peter Principle? The federal government is a Dilbert cartoon.
Reality... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying the correct response here isn't to make it into a story, or to be upset about how this was handled. But the anger shouldn't be directed against the agency, it should be directed against the individual who made this call. I know big governmental agencies are faceless organizations, but it is nothing but a collection of people, and it's actions are those of the people it employees. If you want change, then demand change of the people and you'll get change of an organization.
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The reality here is someone with some authority was an idiot.
And we'll never know who, unless he put it in writing, and it becomes a documented fact that person X made this decision --- instead; whoever the actor is, has FEMA to hide behind.
We'll probably never know who. BUT if FEMA gets a sufficiently bad rap, and this comes back at the US administration; there's a slim chance that it could result in an investigation, with possible negative consequences for the person.
No kidding (Score:2)
Does no one remember the finger? (Score:2)
They still have people living in mold-infested trailers in New Orleans.
Bueraucrats always defend their power first (Score:2)
They do not care about other people. They do not care about results. They do care about their dominance, hence this massively unethical decision which places them squarely in the "evil" corner.
The reason's simple... (Score:2)
Because anything that the people do that's ad-hoc, effective and lower in cost threatens not only the government but the consultants and planning-boards and corporations that get the big tax bucks we pay. The System routing around potential damage
Maps are useless sometimes (Score:2)
They are static they cannot tell you as examples; where survivors are clusters, which way the channel is shifting, assess damage to roads, assess damage to utilities, drop supplies, relay messages, extract survivors, etc. So GET THOSE POS OUT OF MY WAY SO I CAN DO MY JOB!
FEMA, as usual, screwing up big time (Score:5, Interesting)
I've tried to read through this thread, and 2 things impress the hell out of me.
1. The number of posts which are nothing more than duplicates, more than 10 of each scattered through the thread, stop it slashdot!
2. The number of folks who are apologists for FEMA's past performances. This is the same runaway agency that has freshly constructed around 200 so called 'camps' which can contain, behind tall human proof fences, several thousand people per 'camp'.
This is the same runaway agency that authorized LE to shoot to kill, anyone in N.O. who armed themselves against the looters, people who were doing the only thing they knew how to do to survive when there was little food and NO potable water. With no help from FEMA other than confiscating weapons, they interfered with the survival of some of those who had the foresight to prepare themselves and survive, while dooming to a neglected or drowning death, a considerable number of folks in the many hospitals and care homes. They blocked the roads leaving, preventing the many who had their own transportation from getting the hell of of Dodge. That damned sure doesn't fit this old farts definition of a relief agency, but it sure reminds me of Hitler's Gestapo, rounding up the Jews.
This is the same agency that left nearly 100k folks locked in the superdome with no food, water, or sanitation. For several days .
If anything, Katrina taught me that FEMA , under the ultimate direction of Bush 2, has well exceeded the level of uselessness usually attributed to the teats on a board hog.
It is decade's past time to cut our loses with FEMA, it has turned into an agency with a black budget that will never be audited, and whose sole directive is to survive by sucking the public money trough dry. Other than helping to arrange overpriced loans after Sandy, they have done so little to earn their keep that any corporations board of directors would have pulled the plug on them 20 or more years back.
However, I do think we need an agency to give instant aid in situations such as Katrina, Sandy, and now this unprecedented 500 year flooding. But FEMA is not that agency when they refuse to make use of today's technology. As presently operated, it isn't capable of doing useful work when needed. Stop the bleeding. If done quickly enough, the patient, us, might even survive.
New policy (Score:4, Insightful)
It's no longer, " 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you", which was laughable even amongst its supporters.
Now it's the slightly more terrifying 'I'm from the government* and I am the ONLY one who is allowed help you".
An idea which they enforce with far more efficiency. After all, an independent, self-sufficient populace might get ideas otherwise. Why, they might even come up with the notion that the government is beholden to its people rather than the other way around!
I suppose the idea of working with these guys never occurred to FEMA? It sounds like they were providing useful data.
* (or one of its overpaid contractors)
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It is definitely an odd construction. But it did make its point even.
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While it may sound boneheaded, the reality is that FEMA has a plan; even if it is using "outdated" tech--live pilots flying around. Their concerns are not irrelevant: flying objects they have no control/coordination of, and potential impact that can have on their piloted craft. When FEMA is called in, they become responsible. They are the ones everyone is going to scream at if things don't happen exactly the way we hope. If there are problems with inter-operation of drones with piloted craft FEMA would be skewered. Of course they'll be skewered because they aren't using drones as part of their SOP. But then again, when FEMA asks for money to update themselves and their SOP (for instance, so they can add drones to their toolset) the taxpayers scream bloody murder...
What stops FEMA to integrate (/coordinate with) the drone operators into their effort?
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Your question is legitimate, and in point of fact we don't know yet.
I suspect so far what's happened is FEMA found out there was a flying object (the drone) in an area they had helicopters and planes in, so they shut it down. They don't know if it is safe, useful, or practical at that point, and their tired and true methods, and more importantly humans in those other machines take priority.
They may well talk to them, and find the tech useful, and be able to find windows for them to fly when other operation
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They don't know if it is safe, useful, or practical at that point, and their tired and true methods, and more importantly humans in those other machines take priority.
To my mind, it takes about a quarter of a man*hour to assess this info, especially since they collaborated with the local county in the days before FEMA stepped in.
... However badmouthing FEMA or the FAA to the press makes this a less likely outcome.
(the more I look at US of A, the more alien/outlandish they look to me.
* individualism being pushed atop collaboration
* indivialism pushed to the limit is antagonizes with itself: not the type of "let live" individualism but authoritarianism
* "bad mouthing" - "the attack on prestige/authority"? - matters more than doing a good job together...)
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If the assertions made in the last linked article are accurate, they wouldn't have had to merge two data sets, because the drones would have provided the only useful data set.
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Or rather Fema was going to have many national guard, army,and civilian aircraft flying about and did not want to worry about drone collisions.
But hey maybe the OP is correct and they where just being stupid. Your choice.
(looking from outside, looks like a typical US reaction: "us or them")
What stops FEMA integrating the drone operators into the effort? Cooperating with them instead of shutting them down?
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I don't know if you are joking or not... some people really do think like this, despite pictures of people on their roof waiting for a Federal helicopter to pick them up.
Re:Perfect example of Federal Government fucking u (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes and we're all wearing Hawaiian shirts on Friday now.
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yes because one is much cheaper and easier, thus, there will be much less accountability and much more likelihood of unethical operation. It's not just what it's used for today, it's what it will be used for 5 years from now, if there is no public blowback.
This is in fact a slippery scope, because we haven't developed city-wide immune systems* yet, unless i've missed something /as seen in the book "Diamond Age"