Drones Help Parker County Scope Out Flood Damage
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PARKER COUNTY(CBS11) - The flooding along the Brazos has given Parker County officials an unusual 21st century opportunity.
Drones or quad copters, courtesy of Minuteman Disaster Response of McKinney, are helping the fire marshal document the flooding.
The drones can see buildings and dwellings that are impossible to view from the road.
"Capture as much as we can to not only survey the damage and the extent of the flooding but also get video proof of structures we might not know about," Parker County Fire Marshal Kurt Harris told CBS 11 News.
Harris said they can also help map out a kind of flood baseline. It can then be measured against future flooding events and better help prepare for them.
"It's bird's eye view, really, and flying a drone is a lot less expensive than flying a helicopter," said Matt Payne of Minuteman Response. "So they can up and down this river and see there may be structures that exist that they don't even know of from driving down the road."
The first phase is to map the Brazos from Soda Springs all the way upstream to the Parker County line.
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