{"id":13578,"date":"2019-08-22T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T03:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/?p=13578"},"modified":"2019-08-22T03:00:34","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T03:00:34","slug":"ncdots-use-of-drones-after-hurricane-florence-wins-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/state-news\/north-carolina\/ncdots-use-of-drones-after-hurricane-florence-wins-award\/%20","title":{"rendered":"NCDOT&#8217;s Use of Drones after Hurricane Florence Wins Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Photo above &#8211; Drone-captured image of floodwaters in Chinquapin, NC after Hurricane Florence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Florence, the N.C.\nDepartment of Transportation used drones in an unprecedented manner to monitor\nand document flooding, road conditions and traffic impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In recognition of those efforts, NCDOT has earned a regional\naward in the 2019 America\u2019s Transportation Awards competition from the American\nAssociation of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), in the\n\u201cBest Use of Technology and Innovation, Small Project\u201d category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than a dozen NCDOT drone teams flew more than 200\nmissions and captured 8,000 pictures and videos of the damage and flooding left\nbehind by Hurricane Florence last September. This helped state and federal\nagencies make real-time decisions around aiding emergency response, planning\ndetour routes, assessing future repair needs, expanding disaster declarations\nand warning the public of the dangers faced on North Carolina&#8217;s roads. This\nwas the first time drones had been used to monitor a disaster in the state, and\nthe first time in the U.S. that they were used at such a scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The award was presented earlier today at Southern\nAssociation of State Highway and Transportations Officials conference in\nSavannah, Ga. The award was accepted on behalf of NCDOT by Director of Technical\nServices Chris Werner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur ability to use drones and other new technologies made\nNCDOT even more effective at keeping the people of North Carolina safe after\nHurricane Florence, and greatly aided the statewide recovery effort,\u201d said\nNCDOT Aviation Director Bobby Walston. \u201cThe incredible teamwork and ingenuity\nit took for this operation to be a success undoubtedly saved lives and will\nserve as a blueprint for future disaster response efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sponsored by AASHTO, AAA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,\nthe America\u2019s Transportation Awards competition was created to showcase\ngroundbreaking projects delivered every year by state departments of\ntransportation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, 39 state departments of transportation submitted\n81 projects for consideration across three categories. As a regional winner,\nNCDOT\u2019s UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Hurricane Florence Response is considered\nfor inclusion in the competition\u2019s \u201cTop 12,\u201d which will be announced Aug. 23.\nThe Top 12 compete for two top awards\u2014the Grand Prize, chosen by an independent\npanel of judges, and the People\u2019s Choice Award, determined by the public\nthrough online voting. Both top prizes will be awarded in October at AASHTO\u2019s\nAnnual Meeting in St. Louis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the second major award won by NCDOT for drone use\nfollowing Hurricane Florence. NCDOT was also recognized for its Hurricane\nFlorence response by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International\nin May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo above &#8211; Drone-captured image of floodwaters in Chinquapin, NC after Hurricane Florence. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Florence, the N.C. Department of Transportation used drones in an unprecedented manner to monitor and document flooding, road conditions and traffic impacts. In recognition of those efforts, NCDOT has earned a regional award in the 2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,53,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-north-carolina","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/unnamed-2019-08-21T082707.616.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13580,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13578\/revisions\/13580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}