Northern Plains UAS Test Site leverages Vantis, Grand Sky in response to flood emergency

The North­ern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS) is prepar­ing to sup­port statewide emer­gency response efforts fol­low­ing Gov­er­nor Doug Burgum’s emer­gency dec­la­ra­tion for spring flood­ing.

The NPUASTS admin­is­ters Van­tis, North Dakota’s statewide unmanned air­craft sys­tem (UAS) beyond visu­al line of site net­work at the Grand Sky Busi­ness Park near Grand Forks. The NPUASTS will enhance recov­ery efforts through flood lev­el mon­i­tor­ing, com­mu­ni­ty aware­ness tools and a 24/7 Mis­sion Net­work and Oper­a­tions Cen­ter (MNOC).

For pre-mit­i­ga­tion, drones will be used to mon­i­tor flood lev­els, melt rate and ice jams. Images and video footage of drone flights will be made avail­able for pub­lic view­ing. A com­pre­hen­sive flood risk report will soon be avail­able at www.grandforksgov.com, which will pro­vide the com­mu­ni­ty with up-to-date infor­ma­tion about flood risk, enabling them to pre­pare more effec­tive­ly for pos­si­ble flood­ing.

Drone flights will also be coor­di­nat­ed with emer­gency response per­son­nel for quick access to real-time infor­ma­tion. The MNOC will pro­vide secure, 24/7 cov­er­age and coor­di­na­tion with emer­gency response per­son­nel.

“We’re sup­port­ing con­ti­nu­ity in the state’s emer­gency response with Van­tis,” said Erin Roesler, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions and the Van­tis Pro­gram Exec­u­tive. “It’s impor­tant that we rec­og­nize the state has this incred­i­ble plat­form in Van­tis that will play an enor­mous role in the coor­di­na­tion of region­al and, some­day, state emer­gency pre­pared­ness plans.”

The spring flood sea­son isn’t the first time Van­tis has been called upon as a resource for emer­gency respon­ders. In April 2022, heavy snow and ice in west­ern North Dako­ta dam­aged util­i­ty infra­struc­ture, leav­ing cit­i­zens with­out pow­er.

Lever­ag­ing its invest­ment in Van­tis, the state mobilised drones to sur­vey elec­tri­cal infra­struc­ture in rur­al areas, locate and assess the dam­age, and help pri­ori­tise resources for repairs and recov­ery. These ser­vices allowed the elec­tric coop­er­a­tive engi­neers to bet­ter assess dam­age and plan repairs, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas inac­ces­si­ble due to high snow­falls or treach­er­ous road con­di­tions.

“As expe­ri­enced flood fight­ers, North Dakotans are always look­ing for new and bet­ter solu­tions to the flood­ing chal­lenges faced by our cit­i­zens and com­mu­ni­ties, and the state’s sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment in UAS gives us an inno­v­a­tive tool to help pro­tect peo­ple and prop­er­ty,” Bur­gum said.

“Pro­vid­ing real-time per­spec­tive and data col­lec­tion from the skies will help our flood-relat­ed efforts on the ground, and we’re grate­ful to the North­ern Plains UAS Test Site, Van­tis, Grand Sky and the MNOC for coor­di­nat­ing and deploy­ing state-of-the-art resources.”