NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – First responders deal with all kinds of situations – missing person searches, water rescues, and damage assessments to name a few.

Nashville’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) now has a new tool, helping them respond faster than ever.

“Up until about six months ago we were operating everything out of our vehicles. So when we would respond to an incident, we would all have to be hovered over the little screens on our remote, and after doing that about two or three times we realized that something needed to change,” explained Matt Cerone, the field operations supervisor for the OEM.

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Sitting in the OEM’s new drone response trailer, Cerone gave News 2 an exclusive look into how the new technology works.

“For rapid response, we can put drones up in the air much quicker than a helicopter or a plane could get up there,” he said. “So if a road is impassable due to flood waters, due to [a] structure collapse, or even ice on the roads, we can be flying around and provide situational awareness to responders and say, ‘We have people over here. They are stuck behind ruble. They need assistance now.’”

The demonstration showed how someone can be operating multiple drones at the same time, while others on the team can be inside the trailer monitoring the ground and coordinating with first responders in the area if needed.

In addition, the OEM is implementing drones equipped to handle water recoveries.

“They are called swell pro water drones and what they can do for our dive recovery operations, while we have boats in the water we can also have a drone flying above [their] head that drops a little ball onto the lake, and that will run sonar all through the whole lake,” described Cerone. “We will be able to see what’s under the water and send a diver to recover that person.”

Drones have already been an essential tool in the department’s toolbox. The technology is used to perform search and rescue and respond to brush fires and hazmat calls. Most recently, the drones were used to respond to the deadly December tornados.

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“We were out after the December tornadoes doing damage assessment. We flew the whole path of the tornado and all that information was given to FEMA so that when they came to town, they already knew where to go and it saved them a lot of time and resources,” Cerone said, as he showed News 2 images from the first morning after the tornados, the following 10 days, and the next ten days to track the recovery efforts in the aftermath. “The past three or four years in Nashville have taught us that we need to add a lot more to our arsenal than what we have. So with all the advances in technology between drones and A.I., anytime we have an opportunity to make our lives easier through technology, that is a blessing.”

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