The push is on to harness drones to help monitor disaster-damaged roads.

On June 26, Josh Metz, executive director of Monterey Bay DART (Drone Automation & Robotics Technology), made a pitch to the board of the Transportation Agency for Monterey County: Please be the lead agency in our effort to get federal grant money to help us use drones in times of emergency or disaster.

The idea is this: Unmanned drones, much bigger than the hobbyist’s variety, fly over rural parts of the county and assess the conditions of county or private roads. Then, that information is put into a county database and assimilated by decision makers, who then make decisions based on what we know to be true from the sky.

The TAMC board was thrilled by the idea – the phrase “cutting edge” came up – and unanimously agreed to be the public agency sponsor for MBDART’s grant application (DART is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit).

The grant application is for just under $2 million, about half of which would go toward the infrastructure side of drone operations, while the other half would go toward administering the program.

A key partner in the program is University of Alaska Fairbanks, which hosted one of the original federal drone testing sites more than a decade ago, and which operates the Pan-Pacific Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Test Range Complex.

DART’s proposal is an admission that our emergency responsiveness can improve, and must. Climate change-induced disasters are wreaking havoc on our infrastructure, and unless we want to accept major disruptions to our ability to travel on rural roads, we must adapt accordingly – it’s about seeing the problems in real time, and reacting.