(Atlantic) The Atlantic Rotary Club awarded Cass County First Responders a $3,000 grant to support their efforts to purchase and start a drone and pilot program.
The Atlantic Police Department, Cass County Sheriff’s Office, Atlantic Fire Department, and the Cass County EMA are teaming up to pool funds to start this program. Atlantic Police Lt. Devin Hogue said when they started getting figures on what this would cost they started looking for local grants they could apply for so they presented the program to the Rotary Club.
“Our goal is for the Cass County First Responders to be able to have access to it and so we presented it that way and explained what it could be used for and they were generous enough to award us a grant for $3,000, which is fantastic,” said Lt. Hogue.
Lt. Hogue said drones are kind of a new tool that first responders are starting to use and the program will assist in many different situations.
“It could be tracking a suspect that has left an area, potentially if a young child would end up lost walking the trails at one of our county lakes or something… last week we asked Shelby and Montgomery County to come up with theirs to locate some cattle that were loose in fields close to the interstate, it was useful to find them so that they didn’t wander up on the interstate and get struck by a vehicle,” explained Hogue. “Every day it could be something new that they could be utilized for.”
Lt. Hogue said they are waiting on one more grant to go through, but he hopes they can start utilizing the drone program in the next couple of months.
