The Power of Collaboration in the Wake of Hurricane Melissa

On October 28, 2025, Hurricane Melissa, the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Jamaica, struck the island. While devastating, it also came with an opportunity: to make the case for what a fully locally led and globally supported drone response can look like after a major disaster. 

In many ways, the foundations for this response had already been laid. In the months leading up to the hurricane, Jamaica Flying Labs, WeRobotics, and Esri — along with a number of technology companies, civil society organizations, and governmental agencies — had been working together to co-organize the first Caribbean edition of the Drones, AI, and GIS for Disaster Risk Management Conference.

When Melissa struck, these relationships mattered. The trust we had built gave us the confidence to attempt an ambitious thing: a large-scale collaborative drone response coordinated across local and global partners.

We did not know exactly what the outcomes would be. But we knew that the effort itself would be valuable. At the very least, it would provide an extraordinary learning opportunity for all the organizations involved. And importantly, we could then use what we learned to create a blueprint for locally led, globally supported disaster response that could be replicated all over the world in the future.

Within 48 hours of Melissa’s landfall, the key elements of our joint “system” were already in place:

• We designed an ArcGIS online dashboard to coordinate operations, including:
  • drone flight tasking,
  • a registry of drone pilots
  • a 3x3 km grid requested by the government of Jamaica for planning purposes
  • an overview of drone operations and the maps produced.
• Alongside this, the team established a data management infrastructure for storing raw drone data and processed data products.
• We also developed workflows for collaboration, including drone flight tasking, drone data acquisition, data upload, data processing, and the publication of orthomosaics on the dashboard.

While simple by design, this “Minimum Viable GIS Infrastructure” allowed all team members across organizations and geographies to take on their various roles effectively within a shared system, creating high-resolution maps covering 1,200 km2, split into 167 grid cells of 3x3km. In 60 days, over 100,000 images were captured with drones.

Collaboration in Action

This response brought together a broad set of contributors. Hear directly from a selection of key contributors in the video below.

At the local level, Jamaica Flying Labs and, representing the Government of Jamaica, ODPEM (Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management) and NERGIST (National Emergency Response Geographic Information Systems) served as the primary decision-makers and leads of the drone response.

Global support was coordinated by WeRobotics, which facilitated collaboration across international partners and the Flying Labs Network, while Esri provided the GIS infrastructure and technical coordination for data management.

Twenty-six local and international drone pilots, individual volunteers as well as those from civil society and the private sector, contributed to the mapping effort. Participating organizations included: Jamaica Flying Labs, the National Land Agency, Spatial Innovision, HOT OSM, Atlas Logistique/UNDAC, Wingtra, Skydio, Yassuh, Next-Gen Sortie, Treasure Beach Turtle Group, Smith Warner International, and Drone Inspection Services.

The effort was further supported by the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authorities and CDEMA (Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency) on a local and regional level. 

The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine supported drone flight tasking and data management. Partners that provided additional support with data upload included IronRock Insurance and Flow. Fugro deployed a representative to Jamaica to provide on-the ground support during the response effort. 

The Flying Labs Network provided global drone data processing support, spearheaded by Flying Labs from Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Tanzania, and Cameroon. echnology and additional processing support came from Drone Deploy and Esri. 

What’s Next?

While the response is still ongoing, our main focus has shifted. Over the coming weeks we will be documenting this work in detail — consolidating what worked well, what needs improvement and what was missing. We will use our learnings and outcomes to create a replicable blueprint for locally led, globally supported drone disaster response. This blueprint will help other regions establish similar systems before the next disaster strikes.  

We will be sharing the blueprint and our lessons learned in our upcoming Drones, AI, and GIS for Disaster Risk Management conference, moved from its initial date in December 2025. Learn more about the conference and register now to join us in Montego Bay from May 5 – 7, 2026. Our locally led, globally supported drone response for Hurricane Melissa will be front and center at the conference and workshop.