Announcing Post Disaster Aerial Imagery Free to Government Agencies

Boulder, CO, USA • July 11, 2019

Vexcel Imaging, a provider of aerial imagery and related geospatial data products, is making the Vexcel Disaster Response Program for Government Agencies available within hours of a disaster at no cost or obligation. The post-event aerial imagery is provided as an Esri ArcGIS Image Service or through other open standards and can be added to a government’s current GIS maps and software.

"This initiative is made possible through our partnership with the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s (NICB) Geospatial Intelligence Consortium (GIC) and demonstrates the benefits of this public-private relationship,” said Richard Butgrereit, GIC Director of Disaster Response. “The GIC and its insurance industry members look for ways to support communities in their time of need through increased situational awareness gathered from GIC post-disaster imagery.”

By leveraging Vexcel Imaging’s aerial imagery software and hardware and the large community of Vexcel UltraCam equipped aircraft, GIC is able to collect and deliver imagery of very large impacted areas within hours of an event.

“GIC collects entire impacted areas not just along the shoreline. For example, we collected an 85,000 km2 area of interest spanning four states after Hurricane Michael. Over just three days, this data was published online to help insurers and first responders better assess damage without needing to place staff in harm’s way,” stated Ryan Bank, Managing Director for GIC.

Since the GIC was founded, it has responded to more than 20 events including hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, floods, hail storms and floods through its Gray Sky program.

Government agencies can sign up to join the Vexcel Disaster Response Program by contacting Vexcel via phone (720) 460-1645 or at [email protected].