BATON ROUGE, La. — In the days following Hurricane Delta, the Civil Air Patrol’s Louisiana Wing provided federal and state emergency managers with aerial imagery of the storm’s damage in two different formats.
One format involves conventional photos taken through handheld cameras by aircrew. These images cover fairly large areas. They are processed and delivered directly to disaster analysts or, if requested, posted to emergency management agency websites.
The other format uses high-definition, overlapping images taken simultaneously by two cameras mounted on a wing strut. One camera is pointed straight down; the other is pointed at an offset angle. The images acquired by both cameras are then knit together to form a 3D mosaic, allowing recovery managers to more effectively gauge the impact of a hurricane.
Responding to a request by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Louisiana Wing aircrews have flown a series of conventional aerial photography flights designed to broadly locate flood or wind damage throughout Central and South Louisiana from the latest storm, which hit Oct. 9, 2020, ravaging many of the same communities that were hit by Hurricane Laura Aug. 27.
The other flights, using the new, high-definition equipment, retraced the aerial patterns established after Hurricane Laura passed though Southwest Louisiana. The purpose is to determine the extent of any further damage subsequently caused by Hurricane Delta.
The wing’s aerial photography capabilities have been honed over several years, thanks in great measure to the efforts of Lt. Col. Rick Lauterbach.
“I’m very proud of our pilot and photographer teams,” Lauterbach said. “They perform their tasks with skill and enthusiasm and produce a quality product that is very useful to emergency responders.”
“Our thoughts are with the people of Louisiana as you begin your recovery from Hurricane Delta while still suffering the effects of Hurricane Laura,” said Lt. Gen. Kirk Pierce, commander, First Air Force, Air Forces Northern. “Our highly dedicated auxiliary air forces are flying imagery missions to enable emergency responders to support those of you in need.”
To date, more than 1,500 aerial photos have been taken by the Louisiana Wing’s aircrews.
Civil Air Patrol, the longtime auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, operates a fleet of 560 single-engine aircraft and more than 2,000 small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS). It performs about 90% of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 130 lives in fiscal 2020. CAP’s 60,000 members also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. Operating as a nonprofit organization, CAP also plays a leading role in STEM/aerospace education, and its members serve as mentors to about 25,000 young people participating in CAP’s Cadet Programs.
Pictures are great. But what is the latest CAP pre and post impact air-to-ground and ground-to-air communications capabilities? I ask because I was the solo CAP pilot in ( a CAP C-172 ) the very first aircraft over Homestead after the Cat 5 Andrew Hurricane. I was there at dawn to report to the CAP base of operations at Lantana airport. POST MISSION – I made a number of recommendations how we could communicate with survivors on the ground…there was a need then for life saving communications.
This issue was – the best I could do then was rock my wings … which is not much/any help to those on the ground that have immediate medical emergencies.