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Residents of Broadmoor area voice frusterations to Amazon reps over its delivery drones
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BATON ROUGE -- Residents of the Broadmoor area are very frustrated with the sounds of Amazon's delivery drones and the height they're flying at.
Thursday evening, residents gathered at the Broadmoor United Methodist Church's Fellowship Hall, where they had the opportunity to voice their opinions to reps from Amazon, the FAA, and parish officials.
The meeting had a tense feeling to it, with a lot of frustration from residents towards Amazon's drones.
"During a 21-minute period, I counted 18 drone overflights," Broadmoor resident Bob Storer said, which was followed by applause from the crowd.
The Broadmoor area is right near the Amazon facility at the Old Cortana Mall where the drones take off.
"We operate within about a seven and a half mile radius from the facility. Our average flight out and back is about 10 to 15 minutes," Mike Limburg with Amazon Economic Development said.
EBR Metro Councilman Cleve Dunn helped to organize the event.
"Well, we've received a lot of input from residents primarily in the Broadmoor neighborhood about the drones; we've gotten some positive, some negative. What we wanted to do was bring Amazon, the Federal Aviation Administration and all our stakeholders locally like BRPD, planning and zoning, our parish attorney, so we could hear the feedback and residents to give the feedback first hand," Dunn said.
The frustration by residents can be attributed to two things: noise and the altitude of the drones.
"Right now, my experience living in Broadmoor is that it's been unbelievably noisy and invasive. You can hear them flying overhead while indoors," Storer said.
Amazon says they've done noise studies and testing for environmental assessments.
"We have noise samples that were taken in the backyard immediately next to a drone delivery, so on the same property, that shows that noise profile, the delivery at about 68 decibels, which is again still in that moderate threshold," Limburg said.
According to FAA regulations, commercial delivery drones are allowed to fly up to 400 feet.
"Our typical flights are traveling about 200 to 250 feet on the outbound portion of our flight until they get closer to that customer location; it'll begin to descend. On the way back, our flight paths are typically similar, but we're coming back in that 300 to 350 foot range typically," Limburg said.
However, Broadmoor residents say the drones are flying much lower.
"These drones are not flying at the altitudes that they are saying they are, and they are not as quiet as they say they are. They brush the tree tops as they fly over and I don't think I have a 250-foot tree in my backyard," Broadmoor resident Blake Fugler said.
Parish attorneys say the city-parish has no authority over how low the drones can fly, and Amazon follows FAA guidelines.
"Part of the reason that we are here today is that we want to let you know that we are hearing the feedback. We are looking at solutions because of the frequency of flights that are being reported. We are looking at options in order to better distribute our flight patterns," Limburg said.
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