Is America prepared for a widescale drone attack?
SEATTLE (SOA) — Key military and government officials are voicing new concerns about the potential for a wide-scale drone attack in the wake of events overseas and scares here at home. As alarm bells go off, some are questioning whether the federal government is taking the threat seriously enough.
From the front lines in Ukraine to airports in northern Europe, and stateside on the Jersey shore, drones have scared people and scarred terrain.
It keeps Major General Gent Welsh up at night. He commands Washington State's National Guard Forces and Emergency Management Department.
"I'm concerned that we we face another 911, style attack with the proliferation of attack drones these days," he said. "They're everywhere."
Welsh worries that what's happened on the Russian and Ukrainian battlefield, with sneak drone attacks, will happen here.
"Picture the Port of Seattle, lot of container traffic going in and out of the port," he said. "What would happen one day if one of those containers were to open up in a similar way, drones fly up and either attack folks in the nearby stadiums at a game, or, even worse, go up and over the hill and go to SeaTac Airport?"
Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is the ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
She told us there are measures in place.
"We focused in the last FAA authorization, provisions that make sure that the FAA, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Justice work together on a counter-drone strategy," she told Spotlight on America.
We asked if there is infrastructure in place to prevent a wide-scale drone attack.
Senator Cantwell replied, "There's certainly the infrastructure and preparedness by Homeland Security to anticipate these things."
Yet there are acknowledgements that much more needs to be done to counter the existing drone threat.
A bipartisan Senate bill seeks to strengthen military installations from unauthorized drones, after 350 detections at 100 different US bases in the past year.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a memo earlier this year to integrate drones into combat training.
President Trump has suggested the US will spend $500 million to boost drone defenses in 2026 World Cup cities.
We wanted to learn more about the tools being deployed to protect us, so we met Travis Scott, Vice President of Virginia-based Dedrone, which has developed defense technology currently being used by multiple companies and municipalities.
Scott argued more government guidance is needed quickly, including a regulatory framework that allows for entities to "mitigate" drone threats, saying that's the largest current risk.
"Anytime you go to mitigate a drone or take it out of the airspace, there's risk from radio frequency jamming, and could that potentially jam other radio frequency signals, or risk of that drone falling out of the sky and landing on someone's head," he said.
Back in Washington, Major General Welsh is continuing to sound the alarm.
"I'm just worried that it's just a matter of time," he told us. "It's really kind of a when, not if, situation that the United States deals with, a widespread weaponized attack drone situation."
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Next month, Chris Daniels continues his reporting as he takes us inside that Virginia-based company to demonstrate some of the technology that could be used to counter drones, and asks whether laws need to be changed to allow for a quicker response.
