California Gov. Gavin Newsom said after the 5.2 magnitude earthquake hit Kern County Tuesday, many Californians received an alert before serious shaking started thanks to a first-in-the-nation early warning system.
The epicenter of the earthquake was in Lamont, California, but it was felt throughout many parts of Southern California.
The "ShakeAlert" early warning system – managed by USGS - detects California earthquakes. The agency partners with apps like "MyShake" that sends alerts to phones.
The governor’s office said MyShake sent more than 517,000 alerts and even more Californians received alerts thanks to a partnership between the state and Google, which integrated alert software into their Android cell phone operating system.
Richard Allen is with the UC Berkeley Seismology Lab which helps run MyShake. He said some users in LA had 20 to 30 seconds warning before the shaking started Tuesday.
“There is always a small region around the epicenter of the earthquake that we can't get the alert out quickly enough to warn those people. But then the people on these sort of slightly further distances, there can be a lot of warning time,” Allen said. “What our goal with earthquake early warning, it's really just a few seconds, it's a handful of seconds. You get the alert, you should be ready for the earthquake, drop, cover, hold on.”
The earthquake early warning industry continues to evolve.
Josh Bashioum is the founder and CEO of Early Warning Labs. They work with places like hospitals, schools, and transportation teams. They use the ShakeAlert data to determine an earthquake’s intensity at a specific location. If it exceeds a pre-determined threshold, they send alerts that may do anything from slowing down trains to make an announcement at school.
“We do a custom alert for where you are not a blanket alert across like LA,” Bashioum said. “When the earthquake happens our system does all the heavy lifting. Okay, how bad is it gonna be at this LA Unified School? Okay, if is it over their threshold where it could be dangerous to kids play the alert class stops they get underneath their desks They wait until the shaking stops.”
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One of their partners is LA Metro. They have sensors in 27 different locations.
“So for LA Metro each of those 27 locations We actually will calculate for each one how bad the shaking is going to be within a second, and then we systematically will either trigger the audible notification or mechanical responses to happen or not (depending on the severity of the earthquake at each location),” Bashioum said.
The ShakeAlert Team hopes people, businesses, schools, and transportation utilize all the technology available.
“People need to realize they live in earthquake country,” ShakeAlert Operations Team Leader Robert de Groot said.
“This is not the last time something like this is going to happen. Anything that people can use, any tool they can add to their toolbox, to improve their safety is really important.”
“Keep doing what you've always been doing. Drop cover and hold on if you feel shaking. Or if you get an alert, have your disaster supply kits available to you,” he added. “As time goes on, you will see ShakeAlert being used in many, many more places over time.
