Hurricane Ian: Drone Deliveries Assist Stricken Floridians

The very best of “drones for good” has been on-show after areas of Flori­da were dev­as­tat­ed on Sep­tem­ber 28th by the Cat­e­go­ry 4 Hur­ri­cane Ian, reports freightwaves.com.

The res­i­dents of Sani­bel Island, for exam­ple, were cut off from the Flori­da main­land after a sec­tion of its cause­way bridge plunged into the Gulf of Mex­i­co, leav­ing thou­sands of peo­ple strand­ed with only an occa­sion­al heli­copter or barge deliv­er­ing impor­tant sup­plies.

Yet, three U.S drone logis­tics com­pa­nies, Zing, A2Z and Sky­way flew to the res­cue, and began trans­port­ing on-demand meals, portable charg­ers and oth­er essen­tials to the island res­i­dents.

Ian Annase, CEO of Zing, com­ments, “Hear­ing about peo­ple strand­ed on the island made us realise there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for our com­pa­nies to help out by pro­vid­ing an expe­dit­ed drone deliv­ery ser­vice.”

Annase reached out to A2Z and Sky­way to assist. The A2Z team quick­ly shipped a craft from Cal­i­for­nia to Zing’s HQ. Sky­way then arrived on near­by Pine Island to mon­i­tor the air­space.

Annase con­tin­ues, “There are a lot of pieces required to make a drone deliv­ery oper­a­tion suc­cess­ful. First, explor­ing the area with the A2Z team and per­form­ing some test deliv­er­ies helped us iden­ti­fy what we need­ed. For exam­ple, we brought our own solar-pow­ered gen­er­a­tors for all com­put­ers and air traf­fic mon­i­tor­ing devices because there was no pow­er on the island.”

Zing facil­i­tat­ed the deliv­er­ies by open­ing a phone line that cus­tomers could call to reserve a meal and con­firm a pick­up time. Meals were then pre­pared at a site on near­by Pine Island.

(Pho­to: Ger­ald Herbert/Associated Press)

From there, drones equipped with A2Z’s sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion rapid deliv­ery sys­tem (RDS2) picked them up and car­ried the orders across the water to a cen­tral drop-off point at 1177 Cause­way Blvd. Unlike some deliv­ery drones, the RDS2 craft can car­ry mul­ti­ple meals at a time.

The sys­tem is also designed with safe­ty and pri­va­cy in mind. Using a winch and teth­er, the RDS2 makes deliv­er­ies from about 100 feet up, keep­ing the air­craft away from peo­ple and oth­er haz­ards.

Aaron Zhang, CEO of A2Z, points out, “With debris, dan­gling pow­er lines, etc. clut­ter­ing deliv­ery loca­tions, it is impor­tant to drop off the pay­loads from alti­tude in order to keep spin­ning pro­pellers away from any poten­tial snags.”

The RDS2 can fly a 9 mile round trip. It’s billed as an “off-the-shelf” solu­tion that is com­pat­i­ble with any retailer’s pack­ag­ing, so long as it fits with­in the aircraft’s car­go hold.

While con­di­tions on Sani­bel Island have improved, the mis­sions con­duct­ed by Zing, A2Z and Sky­way are demon­strat­ing how deliv­ery drones can play an impor­tant role.

Ian Annase

Annase remarks, “We have learned a lot from the oper­a­tion and proved that drone deliv­ery can be deployed in dis­as­ter areas to assist relief efforts, espe­cial­ly to bar­ri­er islands that can only be reached by water or air.”

In addi­tion to heavy traf­fic on the cause­way, Sani­bel res­i­dents are also con­tend­ing with a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m cur­few along with 20 mph speed lim­its across the island. That essen­tial­ly elim­i­nates an abil­i­ty to get food on-demand unless it comes from down the street.

Yet, with deliv­ery drones, rather than take a 40-minute round trip jour­ney to gain their favourite food from the main­land, Sani­bel res­i­dents can instead get it deliv­ered via drone in a frac­tion of the time. And with this extra lev­el of trans­porta­tion, even dam­aged roads can’t sev­er a customer’s prox­im­i­ty to restau­rants, gro­cery stores and oth­er shops.

Zang con­tin­ues, “Ian (Annase) and the team he pulled togeth­er for this hur­ri­cane relief effort all jumped to the ready to pro­vide assis­tance. We are proud of the way this diverse group of vol­un­teers have worked togeth­er at such short notice and made these deliv­er­ies hap­pen.”

(Pho­to: A2Z Drone Deliv­ery)

Two weeks ago, the cause­way reopened to res­i­dents, but only with tem­po­rary repairs. Work to fix the dam­age is ongo­ing, where res­i­dents, busi­ness­es and pri­vate con­trac­tors can only use the bridge between Wednes­day and Sun­day at lim­it­ed hours.

The abil­i­ty and suc­cess of “drones for good” dur­ing nat­ur­al dis­as­ter con­di­tions has been proven, yet again.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.zingdrones.com

https://www.a2zdronedelivery.com

(News Source: https://www.freightwaves.com/)

(Top pho­to: A2Z Drone Deliv­ery)