In this paper, we study the challenge of enabling an intelligent search, rescue, and disaster recovery operation via Internet of Things (IoT). This paper i) provides a practical research framework to study intelligent search, rescue, and disaster recovery missions, ii) reviews necessary fundamental machine learning algorithms required in object detection and path planning for intelligent search and rescue missions, and iii) demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed architecture using a proof-of-concept hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulator framework to support a specific rescue mission scenario. We present the IoT architecture for search, rescue, and disaster recovery missions and verify it by developing a proof-of-concept prototype.