Macon-Bibb County Government Wants $5.7 Million Drone Fleet For Emergencies

McGruber writes: Macon-Bibb County, Georgia is considering a $5.7 million project with manufacturer Olaeris to deploy 15 to 17 drone aircraft. The aircraft, each bigger than a king-sized bed, would operate out of individual hangars strategically placed across the county. The drones would be able to get to most places in the county within a few minutes. They would be available to the county's Emergency Management Agency, sheriff's office and fire department. "It's highly technical, and having the ability to be the first with Silicon Valley-type technology is unique," said Don Druitt, director of the Macon-Bibb County Emergency Management Agency.

Olaeris claims that for every $1 spent on their drones, a government will save $6 to $8 worth of manpower. "Ninety-five percent of all fire alarms are false, but fire departments have no choice to go, and you may have 15 (firefighters) responding," Olaeris CEO Ted Lindsley said. Lindsley also promises to work with local organizations to address any privacy concerns from residents. People will be able to track the aircraft online whenever they're used in order to learn where and why they were deployed.

Comments

Opening themselves up to liability?

[hawguy]

“Ninety-five percent of all fire alarms are false, but fire departments have no choice to go, and you may have 15 (firefighters) responding,” Lindsley said. “In most cases the drone can see if there is a heat signature or flames. Maybe you send one vehicle to monitor it and can send the other (firefighters) to a major wreck on a highway.”

If someone calls in a fire or accident and the first department sends a drone first to see if the caller is lying, I forsee some big liability lawsuits if someone dies because the fire department was delayed by the time it takes to get a drone in the air and verify the fire. Or worse, if the drone flies out, doesn't detect the fire in the basement, and the call is cancelled as a false alarm.

Will taxpayers really get $6M of value out of the fleet?

Re:Opening themselves up to liability?

[hawguy]

I'm pretty willing to believe what they say about heat signatures. Hot air has a way of escaping. A couple minutes after an alarm goes off, there's got to be heat showing SOMEwhere, even if there's not necessarily a lot of smoke yet.

911: what's your emergency?
Homeowner: I called 30 minutes ago for a firetruck because of an electrical fire in my basement, where are they!?
911: Oh, we sent a drone to look at your house, it didn't see any fire from the air.
Homeowner: Well my basement is still full of smoke, and I can hear electrical arcing
911: Can you see smoke or flames from the outside of your house?
Homeowner: No, just the basement
911: Wait until the flames have burnt through the roof or walls of the house then give us a call and we'll send another drone. If we see a fire at that time, we'll refund the $99.99 "false alarm" fee from the first drone. Please make sure that you really see flames this time, as you only 3 false alarms before we stop sending out the drone. Those things are expensive to operate, you know.... maybe go down and try fanning the flames to see if you can really get the fire going you call us again.

If the experts say you can affirm where there's a fire or not the vast majority of the time, I'm inclined to take their word for it, especially if (going back to triage) there's more fires than manpower at the moment and the opportunity cost of making sure is measured in lives lost at another call.

Have any fire fighting experts claimed that you can reliably detect an early stage house fire with a drone? Will you be as inclined to take their word for it if you call in a fire, and the fire department says they couldn't see it from the air, so you must be lying about it?

Re:Worst possible example.

[rahvin112]

He's saying "use drones to be able to use your limited resources more intelligently" - for example, focusing on getting that jaws-of-life to a potentially critically injured car accident victim rather than diverting to a probable false alarm house fire.

If you honestly think that such a thing even happens you are as foolish as him. You are creating a straw man with an event that's as rare as unicorn sightings.

The fact is that budgets are limited and you can't have an infinite number of rescue workers responding to everything.

Many of these budgets have fixed costs, for example you have 20 firefighters sitting around 24/7/365 (multiple shifts). And these firefighters aren't in new york responding to calls every few minutes. They spend 90% of every day sitting on their ass, just like every other sub-urban/rural firefighter.

And compared to the salaries and overheads of humans, drones are very cheap.

I see your malfunction now. You seem to think that drones fly themselves. That the guy sitting there flying the drone is invisible and doesn't cost salary and overhead. That the drone itself doesn't require maintenance, fuel, parts or will need a ground crew. You are WRONG. The drone is going to cost almost as much to operate as it would cost to put a plane up (except it's cheaper to buy than a plane). And the guy flying it? He's going to cost as much as a highly trained pilot because he's going to be one. This thing is the size of a fridge, it falls out of the sky and lands on someone it's going to kill them. The FAA isn't going to allow anything that size to be flown without someone with a pilots license behind the controls, as they've already decreed BTW.

You also seem to be of the view that drones are miraculous and can spot people in a gutter or a lost child in a forest. People in manned helicopters have a hard time spotting that stuff, how on earth do you think a drone could do it so easy?

Drones aren't miracles. You seem to think they are. This plan is nothing more than some jackass with a hobby that wants the taxpayers to fund it.

Re:Worst possible example.

[Rei]

If you honestly think that such a thing even happens you are as foolish as him. You are creating a straw man with an event that's as rare as unicorn sightings.

If you honestly think that rescue workers don't get multiple calls at the same time to deal with and that such a concept is "as rare as unicorn sightings" then you need to spend some more time with rescue workers.

Many of these budgets have fixed costs, for example you have 20 firefighters sitting around 24/7/365 (multiple shifts). And these firefighters aren't in new york responding to calls every few minutes. They spend 90% of every day sitting on their ass, just like every other sub-urban/rural firefighter.

The Macon-Bibb Fire Department gets 13 thousand calls per year and has to respond to all of them.

But why don't you go down there and call them a bunch of lazy hicks who sit on their ass all day, I'm sure they'll appreciate that.

You seem to think that drones fly themselves. That the guy sitting there flying the drone..

"The guy". Singular. Versus up to a couple dozen people out on a call.

You also seem to be of the view that drones are miraculous and can spot people in a gutter or a lost child in a forest.

Given that these are the reasons that police and rescue services pay for helicopters, which are much more expensive, yes, finding things from the air with an IR camera is a demonstrably beneficial activity.

Drones aren't miracles.

Nope. What they are is cheap helicopters with minimal pre-launch delays and in which that the pilot doesn't have to be physically inside. Which is in all regards a great thing for emergency services.