Seismic early warningCalifornia’s early-warning ShakeAlert system to be rolled out next year

Officials in California expect the state’s ShakeAlert system to be available to some schools, fire stations, and more private companies early next year. Until now, only earthquake researchers, some government agencies, and a few private firms have received alerts from the statewide earthquake early warning system.

ShakeAlert detects earthquakes using the California Integrated Seismic Network of roughly 400 ground motion sensors which identify primary waves (P-waves) as they move through the Earth at almost twice the speed of the earthquakes’ destructive S-waves, which shake the ground. The system sent monitors in San Francisco eight seconds of warning before shaking arrived from the magnitude 6.0 Napa earthquake in August.

ShakeAlert is far from perfect, as researchers need more funding to double the number of sensors to serve California, and an additional 275 sensor stations are needed to roll out the ShakeAlert network in Oregon and Washington. The Los Angeles Times notes that the 2015 expansion will occur as long as Congress approves a $5 million funding request that has passed committees in both the Senate and House. A full vote on the budget was delayed until after the midterm elections. The entire ShakeAlert system in California needs $16.1 million a year to be completed and maintained. Southern California spent $5.6 million from a DHS grant on urban security to build 100 new seismic stations and upgrade twenty-five more.

“This is proven technology that will save lives and reduce the economic impact of an earthquake. It simply needs to be properly funded,” Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) and about thirty congressional members including senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Barbara Boxer (D-California) wrote in a letter asking President Barack Obama for his support.

Early warnings would allow firefighters to open garage doors before an earthquake can jam them shut. It could also instruct students to duck and cover, notify surgeons to halt surgery, and eventually automatically shut off sensitive equipment at private companies, and railway systems. One semiconductor firm in Japan that lost over $15 million in quake damage in 2003 installed machines to automatically shutdown sensitive equipment that etches circuit boards. When a much larger quake hit later, the company lost only $200,000.

Using the ShakeAlert network of sensors, Early Warning Labs of Santa Monica has begun to develop systems that will automatically open fire stations’ garage doors after an earthquake is detected. “The last thing you want is to have your trucks trapped inside the fire station and have to take another 10 or 15 minutes to physically cut those doors open,” said Los Angeles County Fire Department Battalion Chief Larry Collins. The same system could be used to activate emergency power at a hospital before shaking occurs.