34 North Drones Shines at Sold Out SAREX 2019

A sold out crowd of over 450 attendees representing all 58 California Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue teams as well as California National Guard and CAL OES (California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services) were treated to three days of intense training, seminars and demonstrations in all facets of search and rescue.

The SAREX 2019 event was headlined by keynote speaker Sheriff Kory L. Honea, 31st Sheriff of Butte County. Sheriff Honea and the Butte County Sheriff’s Office managed two of the largest recent disasters in California, the near Oroville Dam failure evacuation and the Camp Fire. The massive 153,000 acre Camp Fire involved the largest SAR response in California history and was responsible for destroying over 14,000 homes in the town of Paradise.

Selected vendors were invited to provide guidance in the latest techniques and technologies to assist in search and rescue operations. Event sponsor, 34 North Drones LLC was pleased to be chosen to provide the training, education and UAS demonstrations for this important search and rescue event for all of California’s primary SAR responders, ensuring they have the latest tools and techniques to best perform their duties and save lives.

Over the course of three days of intense training, 34 North Drones led classes on obtaining agency COA’s, Part 107 training, UAS regulations, FAA coordination for emergency response and emergency waivers and FLIR operations

Live demonstrations were held for tracking with FLIR technology and also featured a real time aerial satellite solution for any communication denied area such as the Walker Creek Ranch where the SAREX event was held. With this solution the search drone feed was streamed live with global reach capability as well as to all local cell and wifi enabled devices.

34 North Drones also provided hands on flight training to dozens of attendees and instructed participants in drone training methods and techniques the SAR operators can take back to their units to continually enhance their skills and operational capabilities.

Also presented to the attendees at the event were 34 North’s high endurance drones for search and rescue applications. This included the Cobalt VTOL with up to 10 hours flight time which can be configured with many optional payloads such as EO/IR, aerial cell phone stations, communications and WiFi repeaters and various CBRNE sensor packages.

On site was 34 North’s autonomous UAS helicopter with a 380lb payload capacity and deployment applications ranging from aerial communications, EO/IR and emergency equipment delivery or resupply.

SAREX 2020 will be held in Sonoma, CA next September and 34 North Drones has been selected again to provide all UAS operations for next years event.