The ShakeAlert test is part of the long-awaited earthquake preparedness plan

Tomorrow is a big milestone when it comes to earthquake preparedness in the Northwest. This will be the first public test of ShakeAlert, which is an early warning system for your smartphone. The system will be operational in Oregon next month and Washington this spring.

To find out more, join us with Tom Pansy, Regional Correspondent for KUOW.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

First of all, what is this technique and how does it work?

Very cool stuff. First, I must emphasize though that this is not an earthquake prediction. This tool relies on a newly expanded network of seismographs to detect earthquakes as soon as it strikes, and thus is mainly useful when you are at least a short distance from the epicenter.

The reason for this success is that electronic signals and radio waves travel much faster than the rumbling of earthquakes spread across the Earth’s surface. Suppose there is a strong earthquake on the Pacific coast. There is a dense network of sensors on the coast. They triangulated the location and estimated magnitude of the earthquake and sent this data to a central computer in Seattle that calculated the geographic area that could be affected by the strong shaking.

This computer automatically triggers a pre-set warning message to exit through all cell towers within the specified geographic area. All of this electronic action is supposed to happen within seconds, leaving a few more seconds, perhaps up to half a minute in our example, for people in the Puget Sound metro area to interact before the vibration hits their place.

You said there will be a pre-made message. What will I see when it pops up while I receive this warning?

It would be like Amber alert. You will likely jump straight off your shoes when you hear that loud noise. At this point, it boils down to having to keep things really basic, because you may only have a few seconds to process what that stimulus is in your mind and what you do.

The title of the emergency alert message is simply “An earthquake has been detected!” Followed by the phrase “Drop, cover, hold, protect yourself.” The good thing is that most of us have probably practiced what to do since we were elementary school students.

In addition to alerting us to do this, which we hope is ingrained, are there other ways this technology could be used to save lives?

Definitely there. This is a really interesting area to watch because there is a bunch of startups I hear that sign agreements with the US Geological Survey to access warning code data. These private companies then invent and market devices that perform an automatic shutdown or safety measure.

For example, a water utility can purchase an automated valve that protects its tanks from draining. If an earthquake breaks a set of water pipes down the hill, the fire department can program garage doors at fire stations to open them in the seconds before the start of shaking so that they don’t get jammed later and lock the fire trucks inside when we need them most.

Another example, Sound Transit or Amtrak can add an automatic trigger that automatically slows trains and light rails when the earthquake warning alarm goes off so you don’t go too fast when those rails start to bend.

I understand that this technology is already present on the Internet, in other places in the United States and some other countries as well. Have you helped save lives elsewhere?

she has. Japan, China, Mexico and Turkey are some of the places that actually have this technology. I am more familiar with Japan where the earthquake warning system has been integrated with tsunami warnings as well. This proved to be of great value 10 years ago, during the Great Tohoku earthquake of 9 magnitude. Some people along the Japanese coast heard sirens go off, as we did, to ask them to evacuate, but many got the message on their smartphones saying “Go, go, go. Expect a big tsunami.”

If Japan has had this technology for at least 10 years, why has ShakeAlert taken so long to start here?

It’s been a long time, and it hasn’t been fully built yet. The USGS didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, as this is elsewhere, but the government had to install hundreds and hundreds of seismic sensors on all known earthquake faults in Washington, Oregon, and California. Then the funding came in the form of drops from Congress.

At this point, the sensor network is nearly 70% complete for the West Coast, I am told, with more than 1,100 seismic stations out of the 1,675 blueprints installed just a few weeks ago.

The Tomorrow test is for people in King, Pierce and Thurston Counties. If you want to participate, you will need to subscribe. You can find the instructions at mil.wa.gov/alerts

Listen to the interview by pressing the play button above.

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