Haiti: The View From Above
It’s one of the enduring lessons from Hurricane Katrina: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets—normally used to keep tabs on our adversaires—are equally valuable in determining the extent of damage during national disasters.
That information, in turn, allows military teams and other relief workers to prioritize their efforts, getting aid to the hardest-hit areas first.
In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, much of that information has been collected by RQ-4 Global Hawk, the Air Force’s long-endurance, high-altitude UAV.
Over the past two days, the UAV (which can remain on station for more than 24 hours) has collected almost 2,000 images of the earthquake destruction.
A few the images have been posted on the Air Force Flickr page.
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