When Bureaucracy Grounds Tech (BoulderHelp)

**Originally published 9/17/2013

The Falcon UAV is a small unmanned aircraft system that has received an FAA Certificate of Authorization (COA) in conjunction with the Mesa County (CO) Sheriff’s Office for flight operations covering all 3,300 square miles of jurisdiction. We at Promus Ventures are wildly bullish on UAVs and their potential to disrupt numerous commercial and industrial markets through monitoring and reconnaissance. We are privileged to be seed investors in Airware, who have created a unique platform combining autopilot hardware with open software architecture for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) industry.

Last Saturday, as Boulder, Colorado was in the depths of the worst flooding in its history, manned aircraft were unable to conduct recovery efforts due to the high terrain in the area and inclement weather. Luckily, the Falcon UAV was in the air providing vital damage assessment video, imagery and data to emergency authorities on the ground (and the folks at Falcon were doing it for free).

During this crucial time, the Boulder County Emergency Operations Center called Falcon to notify them that FEMA had officially taken over operations in the area and Falcon’s originally approved request to help in the recovery operations was now denied. Further, FEMA stated that anyone flying drones would be arrested. The Falcon crew has respectfully detailed what happened in this post.

I tweeted this out upon hearing the news:

Is it as simple as one person was threatened by the power of a small drone? Possibly, or maybe there’s more to the story. I believe FEMA works hard and does great good. But the ripple of this incident has made its way into the media and FEMA has yet to comment.

From our perch, it is yet another data point confirming the extraordinary power of what UAVs can accomplish and how they will help the world for good. Enormous companies will arise to support the rapidly growing UAS industry, and continue to expect pushback from those peddling antiquated solutions that threaten their existing power and jobs.

PS — in addition to Falcon, kudos to many others leading the charge to help Boulder and those who have lost dear ones in this time of need (Brad Feld and Foundry Group, CU Athletics, Help Colorado Now, and many others).