December’s high-wind events across Colorado reinforce a critical reality for utility operators: strong risk management depends on visibility.
They also highlight how drone-based inspections enable safer, faster, and more informed decisions before and after extreme weather impacts infrastructure.
Along the Front Range and plains, strong wind events are a recurring reality for utilities.
These damaging winds are often driven by large-scale pressure systems, like Colorado’s well-known Chinook winds, a technical term for the warm, fast-moving downslope winds that descend from the Rockies and accelerate down.
The result is an operating environment where wind-related stress is cumulative, not isolated, with repeated events placing ongoing strain on poles, cross-arms, and infrastructure over time.
(Fun fact: we once knew a dog named Chinook… especially fitting, as the word loosely translates to “puppy” in Russian!)
While outages and visible damage are often addressed quickly, secondary and latent issues frequently go undetected, increasing the risk of service disruptions, safety incidents, and insurance disputes weeks or months later.
Why High Winds Create Hidden Risk for Utility Infrastructure
Unlike storms that cause obvious impact damage, wind events introduce distributed mechanical stress across wide asset portfolios.
Common post-wind issues include:
- Hardware loosening and insulator misalignment
- Line galloping fatigue that accelerates failure
- Substation debris intrusion or fencing compromise
- Rooftop equipment and solar array displacement
- Erosion or obstruction along access roads and rights-of-way
These conditions are often not visible from the ground — and often do not trigger concern until they escalate, often causing larger-scale problems. In post-wind scenarios, coverage and accuracy matter just as much as speed.
The Hidden Cost of Manual-Only Post-Storm Inspections
After high-wind events, utilities traditionally rely on:
- Ground-based visual checks
- Bucket trucks and climbing crews
- Selective asset sampling
While necessary, these approaches:
- Increase human risk
- Limit inspection coverage
- Extend inspection timelines
- Create documentation gaps
How Drone Inspections Improve Post-Wind Verification
Drone-based inspections allow utilities to move from reactive response to proactive validation.
With professional aerial data capture, teams can:
- Inspect large areas without interrupting operations
- Detect anomalies invisible from ground level
- Compare post-event conditions against historical baselines
- Create objective, time-stamped records for insurers and regulators
In wind-prone regions like Colorado, this adds a continuous layer of risk management across the asset lifecycle.
What Mile High Drones Provides for Post-Event Inspections
Our deliverables include:
- High-resolution visual imagery
- Thermal data where applicable
- Asset-level condition summaries
- Portfolio-wide reporting
- Insurance-ready and audit-friendly documentation
Beyond the Wind: Managing What Goes Unseen
High-wind events don’t always leave dramatic damage behind.
often, they leave subtle vulnerabilities that later become outages, safety incidents, or costly emergency repairs.
The utilities that stay ahead are the ones that document early, verify thoroughly, and reduce risk before it compounds.
If your team is reassessing infrastructure after this intense wind event or others, Mile High Drones is supporting fast, responsible aerial inspections across Colorado & nationwide.
