The Morning Blend
Welcome
Complete Media Kit
TUCSON — An unmanned aerial system equipped with sophisticated radar capabilities that’s normally used to help guard the U.S.-Mexico border is being flown to help assess hurricane damage in the Southeast, officials said Friday.
Ground-based pilots are operating the Predator B from its home at Fort Huachuca, flying it across a path that Hurricane Ike is expected to take next week, said Juan Munoz Torres, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman.
Authorities fear that Ike, now plowing through the Bahamas, could become the worst hurricane to hit South Florida since Andrew in 1992.
The aircraft, temporarily based at Corpus Christi, Texas, flew Thursday across the Gulf of Mexico to the Jacksonville, Fla., area. Then it headed north over Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina to assess what lay in the path of Tropical Storm Hanna, before returning to Corpus Christi and completing a 2,300-mile, 10 1/2-hour round trip.
 A Predator B unmanned aerial system is seen during its unveiling on Fort Huachuca in October 2006. A Customs and Border Protection aircraft like this one will be used to survey damage likely from Hurricane Ike. The aircraft being used is based at the fort. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review) |
On Sunday, it will fly a survey mission from Corpus Christi back across the gulf toward Key West, round the Florida cape, head up its east coast to Jacksonville, then return to Texas, said Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner for CBP’s air and marine operations.
The technology aboard will be used to look at marinas and key ports, among other structures.
Kostelnik, a retired Air Force major general, said the Predator will repeat the flights after the hurricane moves through and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials will use the before-and-after footage to assess damage and decide what areas are top-priority concerns after the storms.
“It gives them a baseline for difference analysis,” he said.
The federal government had wanted to fly Predators for the same overhead support to stream video for damage analysis when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans three years ago, according to Kostelnik.
While there are manned aircraft that have similar capabilities, “this is the first forward deployment for DHS unmanned assets,” he said. “It’s a pretty good case study.”
As configured, the CBP Predator B can fly about 240 miles an hour for 18 hours. The 33-foot-long aircraft, with a 66-foot wing span, also has a color optical camera and forward-looking infrared which can stream live video across a satellite hookup to those dealing with disaster response, showing leaks from oil rigs or blown-off roofs.
“The forward-looking infrared capability to pick up warm bodies in cold water is a real asset for search-and-rescue,” Kostelnik said.
But its key feature is what’s called synthetic aperture radar, a highly complex process employing software algorithms and refined processing of actual radar imaging, Kostelnik said.
“If you look at a synthetic aperture radar, you can actually identify types of cars on the ground; there’s very high resolution,” Kostelnik said. “It almost looks like an optical picture.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency requested the assistance from Customs and Border Protection.
Both agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“It really speaks to the capability that the unmanned aerial system brings to Homeland Security and our ability to use a strategic asset to assist with the hurricane response,” said Michael Friel, a spokesman for CBP in Washington.
ON THE NET
• Customs and Border Protection: http://www.cbp.gov/
