Emergency responders typically look at new equipment with a little bit of cynicism. You can imagine how much equipment is touted as 'solving all of their problems,' |
Forget what our customers ask us. We want to be sure what we ask them. |
If you see a family of five with two toddlers, they are a lot more vulnerable and in need of rescue than four or five guys who were having a hurricane party and can probably stay out for another six hours, worse come to worse. |
It's not us saving people. It's us getting the technology to the people who will use it to save people. I always hate it when I hear people saying that we think we're rescuers. We're not. We're scientists. That's our role. |
Not only are we getting that bird's-eye view, but that elevation. We can get up close to the building, go up its sides, look in through windows, focus in on cracks, and seams. |
So, they'll be looking at two things, one, did the structure hold up? Did it fail in unpredictable ways? We also expect them to give us very important feedback on what data they need to collect in the future. |
There's been no real change in over 15 years, ... You don't have a computer that's 15 years old. You probably don't have a television that's 15 years old. ... I'm really frustrated. I want to help get the technology out — and make sure it's the right technology, not just people throwing stuff out there. |
We are committed to using safe, environmentally friendly products. |
We learned that seeing whether people were trapped on their roofs just beyond sight along a flooded road was critical, ... It takes too long for manned helicopters to get there — if the radios are working. |
We walked away with a sense of, this is all beginning to come together, that it can be a radical, positive change in the technology that emergency responders can use and can save lives, and help them work more efficiently. |
We've all kind of built the department together and they are such a talented group. It is going to be hard for this group of kids to be done because they have been going non-stop for three years. |
What really has been the convincing point for the emergency response community and the civil and mechanical communities who focus on structural damage has been seeing the data; once you have seen the data it becomes very compelling. |
When we go to the field, it's often like what we did at the La Conchita mudslide ... It's to take advantage of some of the down cycles that the rescuers have. |
You don't even have to wait until dawn the next morning to start flying to get a view of where the damage is, what areas have been hit hardest, what roads are still open, and how to get access to them. |