Hurricane Responses Demonstrate Growing Role of Drones in Utility Industry
(World News Science)

By Dusty Weis, Association of Equipment Manufacturers 2017 will go down in history as the year that drone technology rose up in response to natural disasters and, for the first time, aided significantly in the recovery efforts. For utility and aviation industry insiders, the responses to Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida represent not only a major milestone in the adoption of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to aid in disaster recovery, but a preview of the vastly untapped potential the technology has to reshape the industry in years ahead. `Essentially, every drone that flew meant that a traditional aircraft was not putting an additional strain on an already fragile...