Aidan Daly
Verizon Frontline has confirmed its continued support for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by signing a new three-year cooperative and research development agreement aimed at exploring new strategies for deploying uncrewed aircraft systems to collect and distribute imagery of damage from severe storms.
In a press release Monday, Michael Adams, associate vice president for federal civilian services at Verizon, said, “This partnership will help pioneer new strategies aimed at gathering and disseminating crucial imagery, leveraging our collective expertise to enhance response efforts to severe storms and mitigate their impact on communities across the U.S.”
The Verizon Frontline Crisis Response Team will make available the necessary uncrewed aircraft system platforms, sensors and personnel resources to enable quick response and collection of aerial imagery of the storm-damaged areas identified by NOAA. It should also enable NOAA’s National Weather Service offices to conduct post-storm damage assessments swiftly and provide data for NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory research.
According to Tim Oram, NWS Southern Region Headquarters Meteorological Services branch chief, the partnerships with Verizon and other organizations to gather drone imagery can improve NWS services to the public and partners when disaster hits.
