During Juneau’s record-breaking glacial outburst flood last month, the Alaska Department of Transportation completed one of its most complex drone missions to date.
A handful of DOT drone pilots filmed Juneau’s temporary levee consistently during the major flood stage of the event, including overnight footage using infrared cameras. The agency livestreamed that footage to keep emergency managers informed as floodwaters rose, crested and receded.
Patrick Dryer, an avalanche and geohazard specialist at DOT in Juneau, said this was a new feat for the department.
“We were able to essentially monitor this remotely, without having personnel, you know, in the field for a 12-hour period there,” Dryer said.
He said they were able to do that because the drones they used, called Skydio X10, connect to Starlink and wireless broadband and can fly long distances in urban areas.
Christopher Goins, a regional director at DOT, said that observing a disaster in real-time without putting staff in danger wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago.
“The world is suddenly changing for us,” Goins said. “This is a big deal.”
He said that surveillance was focused on infrastructure — the HESCO barriers that make up the temporary levee and bridges over the river — not on people.
People did appear in the livestream incidentally, “whether that was being on the barriers, hanging out behind the barriers, laser pointing the drones,” Goins said.
Goins said that if the levee broke — which would have triggered a flash flood — the drone teams would have pivoted to assist rescue operations. The drones are equipped with thermal cameras that can pick people out, even in the dark.
“If we saw somebody in the water, we were to stay with them,” Goins said.
Then they would call Capital City Fire/Rescue and hover there until rescue arrived.
Goins said DOT uses drones regularly for construction and maintenance, so he hopes to expand the department’s capacity to help local emergency managers in the region quickly respond to disasters like floods, landslides and avalanches.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said the flood happened earlier this month. The flood happened in August.
