TROY, Pa. — The Bradford County Department of Public Safety has four drones, and one of them was put to good use on Tuesday.
The National Weather Service was in the Wetona area, looking for tornado damage. The problem they faced was that radar showed possible damage in a very wooded area, not easily accessible.
"I would literally have to hike this mountain, and it would take days and days, and maybe I wouldn't find anything. I don't have the time for that or the staff for that, so something like this could really help us," said Dave Nicosia of NWS in Binghamton.
That's where the drone was helpful.
"It helps time conservation on everyone's part to just pop our drones up in the air for 15, 20 minutes and get a good picture and video stream that they can view from their office," Bradford County Emergency Management Coordinator Sarah Neely said.
Officials watched the footage on a screen from the Summit of Mount Pisgah, which is near Troy.
"Taking all kinds of high-resolution photos, and they're going to send the data with me. I'm going to do the survey from my desk, which I've never done before, and I've been doing this for 22 years," Nicosia said.
Dave Nicosia works for the National Weather Service in Binghamton. So far, he saw some leaf litter which is a sign of high winds, but he cannot yet confirm a tornado touched down. Even so, it's been a rough summer in Bradford County weather-wise. Trees are down, and roadways are flooded.
Neely says the county has seen so much rain over the last two weeks that even a quarter of an inch will cause flooding.
"We have prepared our emergency management coordinators on the local levels and our municipalities to clean out those creeks and ditches to remove the debris as much as they can before the next storm comes in," Neely said.
Neely and her team are preparing for more possibly flooding forecasted for this week.