Earthquake Early Warnings Launched in Washington
The ShakeAlert system, similar to existing early warning systems in Mexico and Japan, began sending alerts in California in 2019 and in Oregon in March 2021. With the addition of Washington state, the system will now issue warnings to millions more people at risk from the largest possible earthquake in the lower 48 states — a rupture of the offshore Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 700-mile fault that runs from California’s Cape Mendocino to the tip of Canada’s Vancouver Island (discovered in part through UW research). The alerts will also warn of potentially damaging earthquakes that are more likely to occur sooner, on one of two dozen crustal faults in the Puget Sound region alone, or deeper slips on the underlying ocean plate. The system works by detecting the first signs of an earthquake before the slower-moving but more damaging ground-shaking waves arrive.
The PNSN began testing the ShakeAlert system with select Washington and Oregon businesses, utilities and organizations in 2015. Besides the individual alerts on phones, the system will be available for organizations or businesses to incorporate into their emergency plans — for instance, to close water valves, slow trains to prevent derailment, halt surgeries or pause sensitive equipment before the shaking starts.
“Business in the pilot program have used these alerts to close valves for water and natural gas, stop rotating equipment and alert employees. We have also partnered with Stanwood Elementary School, which has connected the system to its PA system so students can do earthquake drills that use ShakeAlert,” said PNSN communications manager Bill Steele, who has coordinated the regional test users.
Scientists at the PNSN are continuing to improve the system. About 65% of the planned seismic stations in the network are complete in Washington state. PNSN field teams will install more seismometers through late 2025 in places like the Olympic Peninsula and Eastern Washington.
“The network is successfully detecting earthquakes now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it even better. We’re continuing to install seismometers and improve algorithms to make the alerts faster and more reliable, to give people more warning time and lower the chance of any missed events or false alarms,” Tobin said.
Initial development of the earthquake alert system by three West Coast universities, including the UW, began a decade ago and was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The buildout of the system was funded by Congress, with major grants administered by the USGS in 2015 and 2019, and completed by federal and state agencies working with a consortium of four West Coast universities: the UW; the University of Oregon; the University of California, Berkeley; and the California Institute of Technology.
The Washington system also got state funding in the 2020-21 budget. Private support for Washington’s system has also come from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Amazon, Puget Sound Energy and individual donors.
