ALDOT uses drones, advanced software to assess damage from Selma's January tornado

If you heard buzzing over year head after the January tornado, it wasn’t your imagination. Alabama Department of Transportation was using drones to check out the damage.

Canadian software firm SimActive Inc. announced on its website this week that ALDOT collected more than 18,000 images of the area and used SimActive software to produce maps of the damage.

“Time is critical when responding to disasters like this one,” ALDOT official J.D. D’Arville is quoted on the SimActive website. “SimActive’s Correlator3D allows us to process huge datasets rapidly and distribute them to the many groups that need the data.”

An article in Aviation World, an online industry magazine, said ALDOT has seven centrally located drone pilots who operate fixed-wing drones. They are expected to complete over 4,300 missions this year, according to Aviation World.

“As climate-related events become increasingly frequent and severe, advanced photogrammetry (use of photography in surveying and mapping to measure distances between objects) emerges as an indispensable tool for informed decision-making and efficient recovery initiatives,” the Aviation World article says.