Drone to help with SAR in Umatilla County
Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office, based in Florida, US, has released a video showing off the capabilities of its new UAV.
Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office, based in Florida, US, has released a video showing off the capabilities of its new UAV. The drone will be used by the service for primarily for search and rescue purposes, but can also be utilised in wildfire and earthquake situations.
From the drone’s camera you can see sweeping views of the hills and woodland which the Sheriff’s Office operate in.
“It’s our goal at the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office to use technology available to us as effectively as we can,” says search and rescue Sgt Dwight Johnson in the video. Although he believes that ground searches will stay as the forces primary search and rescue technique, he can see the drone enhancing the ability to perform searches: “I think the ground teams will always be needed, but I do think that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles will be able to assist us by searching areas rapidly and put ground teams in the areas where they will be most effective.”