On July 17th, 2015, we were asked by the Tazewell County Emergency Management Agency to fly a UAV mission to collect aerial imagery to be used for damage assessment and storm severity determination. Within an hour of the request, we were on scene. All of the imagery was collected within two hours and Pekin’s GIS department processed and hosted the imagery within two additional hours. Call out to online imagery was five hours. Additional area to be covered would not have significantly impacted the total time required.
The ability to perform rapid deployment, collection and analysis workflows is crucial in emergency management settings. Our attention to processes, procedures, training, and relationships enabled us to perform this work efficiently and safely.
The swipe map version of the imagery can be found here.
Aerial imagery captured with a civilian UAV to conduct post-tornado damage assessment.