{"id":772099,"date":"2026-05-13T06:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=772099"},"modified":"2026-05-13T08:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:01:00","slug":"jamaica-flying-labs-hurricane-drone-response","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/jamaica-flying-labs-hurricane-drone-response","title":{"rendered":"The Strongest Hurricane in Jamaica&#8217;s History Met Its Match in a Local Drone Nonprofit"},"author":671,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[473082,231,141,165752,493423],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478642],"esri_blog_department":[478242],"class_list":["post-772099","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-coordination","tag-damage-assessment","tag-drones","tag-hurricane","tag-prediction","esri-blog-category-disaster-response","esri_blog_department-public-safety"],"acf":{"video_source":"1_1xesb38c","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"When Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica, a local drone nonprofit mapped 320 communities and guided relief where it was needed most.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"<div><span lang=\"EN\">Through the digital eyes of drones and the strategic power of GIS, Jamaica is pioneering a new approach to disaster recovery, led by locals and supported by global volunteer networks.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>In the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane, geospatial data determined where aid went, where roads were passable, and where environmental hazards existed.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>For the first time in Jamaica's history, a local nonprofit partnered with government agencies to coordinate the entire national drone mapping disaster response, with international partners in a supporting role rather than the lead.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Even with drones, satellites, and cloud partnerships, the limiting factor was getting gigabytes from devastated communities to a fiber-optic line\u2014a lesson that will reshape how future responses are staged.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Hurricane Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica near New Hope on October 28, 2025, it wasn\u2019t just a storm; it was a record-shattering atmospheric assault. With sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, the Category 5 hurricane\u2014the strongest ever recorded to hit the island\u2014unleashed a void of information that threatened to stall lifesaving relief efforts. Power outages plunged 77 percent of the island into darkness, and communications were severed just as the landscape was being rendered unrecognizable by four-meter storm surges and catastrophic winds.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the wake of such devastation, a new paradigm of disaster response has emerged. For the first time in Jamaica, external agencies and foreigners did not lead a large-scale international relief effort but were instead locally led and globally supported. Leading this digital vanguard was Jamaica Flying Labs (JFL), a member of a global network of local drone and mapping labs spanning 41 countries, a small but potent nonprofit that found itself tasked by the government with a massive responsibility: coordinating the entire national drone response.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Valrie Grant, founder of Jamaica Flying Labs, was flying to a United Nations (UN) conference in Chile when the scale of the task ahead began to set in. During a quickly organized video meeting with Jamaica's Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) and National Emergency Response Geographic Information Systems Team, she learned that her group would be leading all drone-based geospatial mapping for damage assessment. To ensure the safety of low-flying relief helicopters and a unified airspace, the government even placed a temporary blanket ban on all unauthorized drone flights across the island, funneling aerial reconnaissance through JFL.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The group had been building up its teams of volunteers and technology since it was founded in 2018. But no Flying Labs group anywhere had taken on such a primary role in a disaster zone. \u201cWe knew we were going to be part of it,\u201d but \u201cwe didn\u2019t recognize that we would be the ones coordinating the entire effort,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The devastation was also surprising. She\u2019d seen some video of the damage, but it wasn\u2019t until she was on the ground that the scale of the storm really set in. \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen anything like that,\u201d she said. In some places, \u201cmy country was unrecognizable.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772121,772119,772120,772122]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Layered Intelligence: HOT, MapAction, and the Power of the Crowd<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even before Melissa reached the coast, the effort to measure the damage was in motion. JFL partnered with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to launch ChatMap, an open-source tool that transformed WhatsApp messages and voice notes into geolocated data. Despite widespread power outages, over 2,000 Jamaicans used the tool to report flooding, landslides, and road blockages in real time.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This \u201ccommunity-reported\u201d layer was supplemented by a massive remote mapping effort. Through HOT\u2019s Tasking Manager, 247 volunteer mappers from around the world scrutinized high-resolution satellite imagery to identify damaged buildings across Jamaica and neighboring Cuba. However, satellite imagery has its limits\u2014specifically cloud cover and resolution. To pierce the veil, JFL deployed a fleet of drones, logging over 300 hours of flight time across 320 communities.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWith drones, we are able to capture higher-fidelity, more granular data at the community level,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For much of the response, JFL fielded about five drone teams. Each team, composed of a pilot and a spotter, was assigned to capture data within pre-established 3 x 3-kilometer grids, with priority areas set by the National Emergency Response Geographic Information Systems Team coordinator. After each roughly 20-minute flight, the teams transferred the data to memory cards for later uploading to the cloud.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As people in the hardest-hit townships searched for temporary shelter and began to pick up the pieces, the first priority for government GIS specialists was assessing damage to transportation networks.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou need access in order to get into the communities so that people can remove debris from the road, clean the roadways, and make sure that ports were intact too,\u201d Grant said. The Jamaica Public Service Company deployed its own separate drone-enabled GIS team to assess damage to power lines.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While JFL\u2019s drones provided the raw imagery, back in Kingston, the international charity MapAction arrived to turn that data into a strategic blueprint for survival. For humanitarian planners, the chaos of a disaster zone is a logistical nightmare; MapAction\u2019s role was to provide a common operating picture. Using data flowing in from other groups operating on the ground, MapAction volunteers produced critical \u201cWho\/What\/Where\u201d (3W) maps, which plotted the locations of 18 different nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies to ensure that food, water, and medical aid reached every corner of the island without duplicating efforts.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/creating-geospatial-infrastructure-delivers-during-disasters\">Alicia Edwards<\/a>, principal director of Jamaica\u2019s National Spatial Data Management Branch, underscored the importance of this work. \u201cWhen Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica, maps became just as vital as manpower,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Combined with imagery from the ground and the skies, the National Emergency Operations Centre's public dashboard provided a living picture of where the worst impact was and where help was being deployed. As new data came in, the maps tracked hundreds of active shelters, integrated satellite imagery from the European Space Agency's Copernicus Programme, and turned WhatsApp field reports into geospatial damage layers.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One particularly vital map produced by the team highlighted damaged hazardous facilities\u2014industrial sites, landfills, and quarries\u2014allowing responders to identify secondary environmental threats while simultaneously mapping road damage to ensure aid trucks didn\u2019t become stuck.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772135,772123,772124]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Following the Sun<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The JFL model relied on a \u201cfollow the sun\u201d processing strategy. As drone pilots in Jamaica finished their exhausting days in the field, they uploaded their data to a global network of sister Flying Labs. Experts in Panama, Brazil, Tanzania, India, and Senegal checked and processed the imagery as soon as it was available, generating orthomosaics and digital surface models that were ready for Jamaican decision-makers soon thereafter.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Partnerships with two tech giants provided the digital infrastructure. Through its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/disaster-response\/overview\">Disaster Response Program<\/a>, Esri provided the ArcGIS Hub and ArcGIS Experience Builder applications used to assign pilots to specific 3x3-kilometer grids; it also helped establish image processing workflows in a low-bandwidth context. Microsoft stepped in with Azure cloud storage and free consulting to handle the massive influx of imagery. Wingtra and Skydio contributed both autonomous drone hardware as well as a handful of personnel to help cover the 900 square kilometers of the worst-affected disaster zones.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Grant, the effort emblematized a new approach to mitigating and responding to disasters, one built on local control and self-sustainability. Leveraging tech for more locally driven recovery efforts is at the heart of the Flying Labs mission. Officially founded in 2016, the network of local innovation hubs equips its communities with the technology, skills, and connections helpful for solving social and environmental problems, often with drones.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the \u201cinclusive networks\u201d model\u2014initiated by WeRobotics, the Geneva-based nonprofit behind the Flying Labs Network\u2014each lab operates as an independent licensee, run by a local for-profit, nonprofit, or academic organization. By incubating and training local drone pilots and GIS analysts, the goal is to put mapping, remote sensing, and robotics in the hands of locals, instead of foreign companies and consultants who often parachute in with little local knowledge or interest in local stewardship.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Grant says that JFL, alongside other units in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is now seeding labs in other countries across the hurricane-prone Caribbean. \u201cToday it\u2019s Jamaica; tomorrow it\u2019s someplace else in the region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And in Jamaica, JFL and others in and out of government have been running a series of capacity-building and educational events across the country centered on community-led disaster awareness and response. About a week before Melissa, Grant helped lead a stakeholder engagement workshop in a coastal community that suffers from frequent flooding.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe literally shifted our collaborative learning project from that community to being a response effort for Melissa,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we got that call, that shift was much simpler for us to make because we were already in that frame of mind.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772126,772127,772128]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Friction on the Ground: Data Bottlenecks and Fiber Lines<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite the high-tech coordination, the reality on the ground was often <em>old school<\/em>. Grant highlighted a significant technical bottleneck: the sheer volume of data. A single 3 kilometer grid could generate up to 10,000 images, totaling 10 gigabytes of data. While the teams had Starlink satellite units, the high density of users in the disaster zone degraded the service, making data uploads impossible from the field. According to Grant, JFL did not bargain for that.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe had bottlenecks in terms of the data upload,\u201d she explained. \u201cI\u2019ve now formed a partnership with a telecommunications company. We literally have a desk inside one of their offices uploading data.\u201d This meant mobile teams had to physically drive hard drives from the devastated western parishes to a dedicated fiber-optic line in Kingston. Someday, drones could ferry the data back to base too, but Jamaican regulations for those flights haven\u2019t been written yet.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among the many lessons and reminders Grant drew from JFL\u2019s frontline work was the importance of being adaptable.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEven in terms of your workflows, you have to have that flexibility to recognize that theory and practice are two different things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat\u2019s something that we take to heart, and we were able to pivot and to evolve things on the fly, building as we go, because we recognize what the moment called for.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the technical and social side, she\u2019s seen many opportunities for improvement\u2014not just in JFL's internal processes, but also how to better feed data into the national response workflow.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another lesson: Drone teams should have a seamless way to provide their own field reports as they collect imagery data, \u201cso that the people who need it can get immediate help,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The \u201cHuman Element\u201d of the Drone<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As drone teams gathered critical imagery, Grant saw how they were coping not only with technical challenges but also with the emotional weight of the work. Unlike satellite imagery, which can feel detached, drone mapping is an intimate act. Pilots are physically present in the communities, witnessing the trauma of survivors firsthand. \u201cBeing on the ground was a whole different experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On her first day in the field, she recalled encountering one woman who had lost her home and was living in her car. She watched neighbors put an injured man in a wheelbarrow and, with emergency services still unable to reach their town, push him to the hospital. He died along the way.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou recognize that they need to talk,\u201d she said. \u201cEven my team\u2014I now recognize what they were going through.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To address stress among team members, Grant consulted an expert in resilience to help guide weekly check-ins and breathing exercises for volunteers.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou just have to remind yourself, as I told the team, that even though we can\u2019t do everything\u2014sometimes we feel as though we\u2019re helpless and can\u2019t help the people\u2014we are helping in the way that we can by our mapping.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From that perspective, the data isn\u2019t just a set of pixels; it\u2019s a tool for community recovery. For the first time, local communities were actively requesting drone flights to help document their damage.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhen you have people interacting with you\u2014that human element\u2014you can\u2019t be divorced from what it is that you\u2019re doing to bring a solution to these people,\u201d Grant said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just data for you. It has more meaning.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772129,772132,772131]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>A Blueprint for the Future<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Jamaica moved from immediate response into the long-term recovery phase, the data collected by JFL and its partners is providing a valuable picture for ongoing recovery and future disaster preparations. After researchers at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine and WeRobotics analyze the processed geospatial data, it is shared in the cloud with government and academic researchers. (Some of it is also published on OpenAerialMap, a project that provides open-source disaster imagery.) The Jamaican government is using the data to analyze the rebuilding process. The data is also being used to help train AI models to understand building damage and inform complex flood analysis<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Grant emphasizes the less measurable impacts of her teams\u2019 mapping efforts. The response to Hurricane Melissa demonstrated that local expertise, when empowered by technology and global cooperation, can lead to a more effective and equitable disaster response. A <a href=\"https:\/\/flyinglabs.org\/drmconference2026\">conference <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/flyinglabs.org\/drmconference2026\">in May 2026<\/a> in Montego Bay on drones, AI, and GIS\u2014planned for December but rescheduled after Melissa\u2014will now serve as a historic \u201cstock-taking\u201d event, where the lessons learned from the storm might provide a blueprint for the region and the rest of the world. Building up that kind of local expertise is growing more important, as warmer waters bring larger storms and floods, and as financial resources dwindle amid global policy upheavals, noted Grant.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe reality is that resources have always been stretched thin, but this year, I think, has seen particular challenges with regards to having resources to do anything,\u201d she said. \u201cBut also, I think there has been that recognition\u2014 and I\u2019m going to be very blunt\u2014 that nobody\u2019s coming to save us, so we have to figure out how to save ourselves. And that\u2019s not a bad thing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The response to Melissa was a template for that future, \u201ca local initiative that was globally supported,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn more about Jamaica Flying Labs\u2019 response <a href=\"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/74039498438f40168723683c2266e2c0\">in this ArcGIS StoryMap story<\/a>. Explore how\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/emergency-management\/overview?rmedium=www_esri_com_EtoF&amp;rsource=\/en-us\/industries\/state-local-government\/solutions\/emergency-management\">GIS supports emergency operations<\/a>\u00a0before, during, and after a storm.<\/p>"}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Drones Reshaped Jamaica\u2019s Response to a Record Hurricane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica, a local drone nonprofit mapped 320 communities and guided relief where it was needed most.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/jamaica-flying-labs-hurricane-drone-response\" \/>\n<meta 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