The co-op based in Young Harris, Georgia, partnered with Southern Company Services to fly a drone from ridge top to ridge top carrying a pull line that would later be attached to fiber cable. “From supporting line construction efforts to system inspection and storm restoration assistance, drones are just another arrow in the quiver of the utility worker of the future.” “Drone technology is starting to become a game-changer in the utility industry,” Nelms said. Keeping the project on track and getting it finished before winter required an unconventional solution: drones. But the path to the top included a deep gorge and 100-foot-tall pine trees. The co-op in late 2018 planned to extend 7,000 feet of fiber cable up the mountain. “The benefits of the project will show themselves during the first good snow, when people know they can or cannot go over that mountain. “Understanding winter weather conditions is critically important, because this passage is a main thoroughfare for citizens of Union County and its surrounding counties who travel south to get to work and to health care facilities in the Gainesville and north Atlanta areas. “This link is necessary so the local government has connectivity to a weather station and cameras atop the mountain,” said Nelms. After hearing Paris’s weather-station concerns, Nelms offered to help connect the system to the co-op’s fiber network. Nelms is the CEO of Blue Ridge Mountain EMC, which has offered fiber-to-the-home broadband to its members for more than 10 years. “It was a nice amount of equipment, but we didn’t have a way to access it on a regular basis,” said Paris. But when winter storms blew in-the most critical time to obtain weather data-the signal would frequently drop. The Georgia Department of Transportation installed a weather station with cameras on the mountaintop with internet connection through a distant cell tower. “It’s almost like a dream for me,” he said. Now, thanks to broadband internet access installed by Blue Ridge Mountain EMC and the time-saving work of an intrepid drone, the need for Paris’s pre-dawn ascents has disappeared. I couldn’t ask anybody else to do it, so I’d do it myself.” It’s dangerous for me I felt it was something I always needed to do. I’ve done it for several years, often in the middle of the night. “Anytime there was a bad snow or ice storm, I’d physically drive up the mountain to check the road conditions. “This is our main transportation artery out of Union County for 80% of all critical medical needs,” said Paris.
He’s been elected sole commissioner of Union County for the past 18 years, and among his unofficial duties have been frequent hazardous drives up nearby Blood Mountain to report, via his Facebook page, on road conditions through the highly traveled Neels Gap. Lamar Paris is no stranger to winter’s treachery on the roads that wind through the mountains of North Georgia. A Blue Ridge Mountain EMC crew watches a drone take off carrying a pull line to connect fiber to a weather station on an Appalachian Trail peak.
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