'Unnerving': Texas town finds lightning-fast, convenient Amazon deliveries by drone to be scary and upsetting in reality

New developments meant to make life easier and more convenient sometimes, it turns out, have deleterious effects.

That’s the case for Richardson, Texas residents, who find their city swarmed with Amazon drones.

And soon, it could be the case for hundreds of towns and cities across the country.

‘It feels like an air raid’

Richardson’s city council voted to approve a zoning change in June 2025 that allowed Amazon to begin offering drone deliveries within a 7.5-mile radius of the Amazon distribution center there.

According to a local news report from Community Impact covering the meeting, only two residents spoke at the council meeting, and the city received seven letters about the zoning change: six of the letters were in opposition, and one was in support.

“Most in opposition cited noise as the primary reason for opposition,” the report noted.

The drones began flying in December 2025, and soon after, residents began complaining about noise, the frequency of the deliveries, and the height drones were flying at, according to a February Community Impact report.

“They not only fly down our street, but even when I’m walking around our neighborhood, you hear them all the time,” Scott Burns, a Richardson resident, told Community Impact. “You can hear them in your home. It feels like an air raid.”

City Manager Don Magner told Community Impact the city wasn’t able to mitigate most of the complaints, as the issues fall under the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates drones.

In April, after months of complaints, the city council met in an executive session to hear legal advice on removing the zoning it had granted Amazon to allow the drones. But the council decided not to pursue it, because it found the zoning was legal, and attempting to rescind it “would come with significant legal risks,” Community Impact reported.

Drones coming to a city near you

Amazon announced in August that it was expanding its drone delivery service, dubbed Prime Air, to nearly 500 cities and towns across the U.S. by the end of this year.

In a release, the company said it would be a sixfold increase. It also touts the “ultrafast” service that can see a drone drop an item at your door “in as fast as 30 minutes, with most orders arriving around 60 minutes after checkout.”

A recent New York Times report also detailed the plight of Richardson residents, who say their lives have been impacted by the constant noise and intrusion of drones.

“What’s happening in Richardson is about to happen all over the country, and people are finally going to believe us that having all these drones flying around is actually a big, big problem,” Scott Bratcher, a Richardson resident, told the Times. The report notes that he is president of the homeowners’ association “in a Richardson neighborhood that residents have called a drone highway.”