The flash floods which have devastated Texas are already a troublesome disaster to handle. Greater than 100 persons are confirmed lifeless after the July 4 deluge, and lots of extra stay lacking. However whereas restoration efforts are underway, Texas authorities are grappling with a compounding problem: civilian drone operators interfering with emergency response.
Beginner pilots are both attempting to seize dramatic footage of the catastrophe or, in some circumstances, trying to find lacking or stranded folks themselves. That’s not simply unhelpful—it’s harmful.
“We all know that folks need to volunteer, however what we’re beginning to see is private drones flying,” Kerrville metropolis supervisor Dalton Rice mentioned at a latest press convention. Rice discouraged these have-a-go heroes with drones. “These private drones flying is a hazard to plane, which then dangers additional operations,” he added.
What would possibly appear to be good intentions from above is, in follow, making issues worse on the bottom. “Notably with emergency response, folks suppose that they’re doing good, when, in actuality, they’re inflicting extra hurt than good,” says Ryan Wallace, a professor and drone professional at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College.
This isn’t a brand new downside. In January 2025, a drone collided with certainly one of two Tremendous Scooper amphibious plane combating the Los Angeles wildfires. The collision compelled the plane to land and be decommissioned, immediately halving the area’s firefighting capability. “It’s a tragic actuality that folks have been flying drones over catastrophe zones with out permission ever for the reason that expertise got here into widespread use over a decade in the past,” says Arthur Holland Michel, a drone professional and writer of Eyes within the Sky.
The rising availability of shopper drones over the previous decade has worsened the difficulty. “As drones turned inexpensive within the 2010s, extra folks had them for unregulated leisure use or skilled pictures,” explains Robin Murphy, professor emeritus at Texas A&M College. She recollects how, throughout Hurricane Harvey in 2017, officers needed to name the sheriff to cease a civilian attempting to movie flood footage to promote to the information, simply so official drone groups might collect time-sensitive emergency knowledge.
Between 2015 and 2025, there have been 190 recorded situations of unmanned plane system (UAS) incursions, conflicts, or airspace intrusions that interfered with wildfire and U.S. Forest Service operations, based on Wallace.
Regardless of repeated training campaigns, the message isn’t sinking in. “Aviation authorities have tried time and again to coach drone customers concerning the very actual dangers of interfering with rescue efforts and catastrophe reduction, nevertheless it simply doesn’t appear to get by means of to some folks,” Wallace says. Whereas technical and authorized choices exist to disable unauthorized drones, the burden typically falls on responders, who must be targeted on saving lives and never policing airspace.
The comparability, Murphy notes, is stark: “It’s like a civilian strolling as much as a SWAT crew commander throughout an lively shooter occasion and providing to assist cowl off an angle as a result of they’ve a gun allow. There are such a lot of issues with this,” she says. “The individual doesn’t have radios, doesn’t know the parlance, isn’t skilled in SWAT, there are procedures for becoming a member of an company, the company can be chargeable for this individual’s actions, and so forth. Similar factor with self-deploying drones.”
Low-flying civilian drones additionally pose a collision danger to helicopters working simply above the bottom to help trapped residents. In crowded and chaotic airspace, the presence of rogue drones can fairly actually flip lethal.
Even when drone pilots aren’t disrupting emergency plane, their contributions typically can’t be used. “The emergency managers often can’t use the information as a result of it’s not verified,” says Murphy. “For instance, businesses can’t settle for a report from an individual claiming to be a civil engineer they’ve by no means met and with out credentials who says a constructing is about to break down; the businesses have a course of for acquiring knowledge based on accountability requirements.” The file codecs from industrial drones additionally don’t all the time align with company instruments. One colleague, Murphy recollects, spent 40 hours changing well-meaning footage from a civilian right into a usable format after a fireplace.
“What’s disturbing to me personally is the shortage of enforcement or penalties,” she provides. “The businesses are in a no-win state of affairs and might’t do it; if they arrive down exhausting on self-deployed groups—assuming that they had time throughout a response.”
As for why early warnings didn’t forestall extra lack of life through the Texas floods, some observers level to latest staffing cuts on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which can have led to the early retirement of a key native meteorologist. The forecasting query could take time to reply, however the drone downside is already making itself recognized.
