New York City deploys drones to warn of storms

The megger is gone. Instead, emergency management officials in New York have gone high-tech, using drones to warn residents of potentially threatening weather conditions.

With a buzzing sound in the background, a drone equipped with a speaker flies over houses warning people living in basements or ground floor apartments of impending heavy rain.

“Be prepared to leave the location,” the voice from the sky said in video footage released Tuesday by the city’s emergency management agency. “If there’s flooding, don’t hesitate.”

About five teams with several drones each were deployed to certain flood-prone neighborhoods. Zach Iscol, the city’s emergency management commissioner, said messages are being sent in multiple languages. It was expected to continue until weather affected drone flights.

Flash floods have been deadly for New Yorkers who live in basement apartments, which can quickly fill in a deluge. Eleven people drowned in such homes in 2021 amid rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

The drones are in addition to other forms of emergency messaging, including social media, text alerts and a system that reaches more than 2,000 community organizations across the city that serve senior citizens, the disabled and other groups.

“You know, we live in a bubble and we have to meet people where they are in the notifications so they can be prepared,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference Tuesday.

Adams is a “tech geek” whose administration has used drone technology to monitor large gatherings as well as search beaches for sharks. Under his watch, the city’s police department also briefly toyed with using a robot to patrol the Times Square subway station and sometimes sent a robot dog into dangerous scenes, including a Manhattan parking lot, which crashed in 2023.

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Windstorm in New York