Earthquake puts the early warning system to the test | News

SACRAMENTO — When sensors picked up the first signs of a powerful earthquake hitting the Northern California coast, an alarm was sounded to 3 million smartphone users telling them to “Drop, Cover, Hold.” It was hailed as the biggest test yet of the alarm system since its public launch.

But people rocked by the 6.4-magnitude quake early Tuesday said the alert didn’t give them enough time to take cover as the quake shook homes from their foundations, knocked out thousands of people from power and water, and injured more than a dozen people. .

Jimmy Eller, who was sitting in his parked Chevy Malibu while working as a security guard, said he was already in the throes of a violent earthquake when he noticed his phone lit up with the warning. He was more focused on what was going on outside as the street lamps started to flicker.

“They were all blinking and blinking and off,” Eller said. “I could see the breakers and wires in the distance flashing like lightning. It was terrifying. You could see everything moving and trembling.”

The epicenter was near the small town of Ferndale, about 210 miles northwest of San Francisco. This was the biggest alert system ShakeAlert has ever made, since it was publicly launched in California, three years ago.

“It really is a world-leading tool that we hope will save lives,” said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

ShakeAlert was developed by university researchers and maintained by the USGS. It is one of the few earthquake warning systems that have been established in various parts of the world over the past few decades, including Japan and Mexico. But the new technology, which is in operation in California, Oregon and Washington, is not without challenges.

Before alerts can be sent to people’s phones, multiple seismometers must detect movement below the Earth’s surface. This information can then be processed to determine the location and magnitude of the earthquake. The process, from seismometer detection to sending the alert, is all automated, said Robert de Groot, scientist on the ShakeAlert operations team.

Some people received the alert with a 10-second notification. Because of the way the system works, de Groot said, those closest to the epicenter may not have received an alert until they felt the shaking.

Jane Olson, who lives in Arcata about 25 miles from the epicenter, said she woke up from shaking and her phone went off at the same time. She wasn’t sure who woke her up first, but said the loud noise and bright light from her phone probably helped her realize the intensity of the quake.

Fearful of her dog, who was sleeping in a crate, she quickly got up and headed for the back door, either to stand for shelter or to go outside if the house started to fall apart.

“It might have taken longer for the vibration to wake me up if the phone didn’t also make so much noise,” she said.

Ferndale City Manager Jay Parrish said he was not aware of anyone receiving the alert. Unlike tsunamis or floods in which there is ample time to prepare for a potential disaster, he did not believe that an earthquake warning system could provide sufficient advance notice.

When told the alarm sounded for about 10 seconds before violent shaking, he said, “That may have saved one of my glass jars.”

De Groot said it’s hard to say why someone should have received the alert and not without more information. Some people may have turned off notifications from Wireless Emergency Alerts, the same system run by the federal government that sends Amber Alerts to phones.

A glitch in an earthquake warning app for San Diego residents that relied on system data falsely alerted people more than 650 miles from the epicenter.

De Groot said this is the first time the system has alerted people in two states – California and Oregon. A study is underway to explore alerting in parts of Alaska in the future.

Several apps use ShakeAlert data to notify people who could experience significant earthquake impacts. People within a radius of about 250 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake that hit Northern California on Tuesday have been alerted, said Richard Allen, director of the Seismology Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

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