Well; you have to imagine mishaps like this will happen when drones are deployed to work around people’s homes.
A woman in Collier Country in Florida, US last week called the police in panic after a drone hovered around her home longer than she felt comfortable with.
Lourdes Albert insisted the drone peeped on her and her daughter as they changed clothes.
Lourdes’ daughter Natalie Manrique woman was in what she thought was the safety of her own home. Just fresh from the beach, she had gone upstairs to change when she looked out the window and saw a drone flying outside, “watching” her.
Feeling violated, Natalie said she wanted to smash the drone right in its owner’s face.
As it turned out though, the truth was less dramatic than that.
WINK News reported that the drone that the woman says was peeping in on her at her home actually belongs to Florida Power and Light, and was on a powerline inspection in the area.
Florida Power & Light is a power utility company based in Florida in the US. recently, the company started testing its FPLAir One drone; a long-range, airplane-sized fixed-wing commercial drone capable of operating from South to North Florida to the Panhandle and back, all in the same flight.
Along the way, it will capture high quality images of FPL infrastructure, both for advance identification of potential issues and to gather critical information during storms and other severe conditions.
For this particular mission, however, the company sent out a smaller drone; probably one supplied by one of its drone partners, Percepto.
(Although, from the grainy picture provides, the drone looks like DJI’s M300).
The drone was to conduct routine inspection on the power grid in Collier County, and FPL even notified local residents beforehand that a drone would be conducting inspections in the area.
Sadly, the message did not get to Lourdes Albert, who is still upset to this day and promised to throw more than one brick at the drone the next time she sees it lurking around her home.
The reason why she did not get the message was ostensibly because she rents the home she lives in, and FPL sent notifications to home owners. Apparently, Lourdes’ landlord/lady forgot to relay the message to his/her tenant.
And it looks like the local Sherriff was not notified either, because when they responded to Lourdes’ call, they believed her story, and did not immediately connect the drone to the electricity company.
But when the story broke last week, WINK News viewers were quick to point out that the drone the women thought was spying on them was, in fact, not doing that. They saw the drone and said it was an FPL drone inspecting power lines.
Lourdes didn’t know that and still doesn’t believe it. She said the person flying the drone peeped in on her while she was changing.
“I’m letting you know I’m going to throw a brick at you if I see you again,” Lourdes said.
“The drone was conducting a proactive assessment, which we do on a routine basis,” said FPL’s Marshall Hastings.
Naturally, Mr Hastings was asked if by any chance the FPL the drone could have been taking pictures of Lourdes naked.
“It only captures pictures of FPL infrastructure,” he responded. "So, only FPL poles and FPL wires."
Hastings also said they called the owner of these apartments to tell them the drone testing was going to happen.
Lourdes is adamant she will throw bricks at the drone if she sees it again.
FPL conducts about 120,000 drone powerline inspection flights a year, so people living near powerlines should be surprised to see a drone near their homes.
Throwing bricks at these drones might not be a good idea.