Mobile phone earthquake alerts debut in Washington – catch up

Sandy Dougton / The Seattle Times

One of the most frightening things about earthquakes is the way they strike without warning. This will change a little in Washington starting Tuesday.

For the first time, residents will be able to get alerts on their cell phones seconds before the ground begins to shake under their feet – hopefully, there will be enough time to get to a safe place and avoid injury.

California residents have been linked to the Earthquake Early Warning Network called ShakeAlert since late 2019 and have already received advance notifications of numerous small to medium earthquakes. The system went live in Oregon two months ago. Washington’s addition complements the introduction of network-inspired technology in Japan and Mexico that scientists at the US Geological Survey, University of Washington, California Institute of Technology and other institutions have developed over the past fifteen years.

“This is a major milestone,” said Harold Tobin, director of the UW Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. “Giving people more time to shelter and protect themselves and their families can make a big difference.”

The backbone of the system is a dense network of over 1,150 seismometers capable of quickly identifying earthquakes anywhere along the West Coast. Much work over the past several years has focused on modernizing seismic stations and adding new ones, with the number doubling in Washington and Oregon alone since the project began.

Instruments closest to where the fault is torn apart will detect the initial fast-moving seismic waves, then transmit electronic signals that can reach people in distant towns and cities before the slower and more damaging seismic waves arrive.

The amount of warning people will get depends on how far away they are from the epicenter. For earthquakes originating near your location, the system will not be of much help. But for the biggest seismic threat to Washington – a massive earthquake on the Cascadia maritime region – Seattle, Tacoma and other cities in Puget Sound could receive a notice about a minute in advance before the ground begins to rise.

At least initially, some Washington citizens will be at a disadvantage in how quickly messages can reach them, largely due to the state’s failure to develop or support the type of mobile apps available in other states.

The U.S. Geological Survey has invested more than $ 130 million in ShakeAlert, including research, seismic stations, computer software, and telemetry that radiate signals at lightning speed. But the agency has left it to states and the private sector to address the technological breakthrough of sending alerts to millions of people within seconds.

“This is not our area of ​​expertise,” said Doug Geffen, earthquake early warning coordinator at the USGS. “We have struggled to get the budget that we only have to build capacity.”

In California, public alerts are primarily served via two apps, one commercially developed and the other created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and funded in part by the state’s Office of Emergency Services. Designed to provide warnings with the least delay, both groups expanded their coverage area to include Oregon when ShakeAlert was activated there in March.

Maximilian Dickson, the state’s supervisor of geological hazards, said the Washington Department of Emergency Management asked them to expand in Washington, but the answer was “no.”

Representatives of MyShake, UC Berkeley’s app, did not respond to requests for comment. Josh Bacheum, Founder and CEO of Early Warning Labs, which developed the QuakeAlertUSA app, said they are ready, but neither the state nor any sponsor has offered to offset the cost. He added that Early Warning Labs had expanded its app to Oregon in hopes that funding would follow, but it did not happen.

“We are a private company, and we provide these alerts for free,” Bashum said. “But running something like this is really expensive.” The company’s for-profit arm works with companies to integrate earthquake early warning into their operations.

Basheum estimates that the cost to cover Washington will be $ 300,000 annually.

The state has a long history of ignoring earthquake risks and lacking funding for emergency management and preparedness, and earthquake early warning was no exception. California has contributed nearly $ 60 million to ShakeAlert for research and installation of seismometers and other infrastructure. Oregon chipped in $ 8.5 million. The Washington legislature allocated $ 1.2 million, mostly to seismic stations, without anything to cover the cost of the notification system.

Instead, the Department of Emergency Management was working with a nonprofit to develop an emergency preparedness app set to launch in June. ShakeAlert was supposed to be part of the package, but it proved to be a huge challenge for the team of volunteers, Dixon says.

“We didn’t have enough funding or people with the right expertise.”

This leaves Washington residents two major routes to access earthquake alerts.

Those with Android phones are in the best position, because Google has integrated ShakeAlert into its operating systems for near-instant delivery and a graphic screen urging users to take cover.

Everyone else will rely on the federal wireless emergency alert system used to push Amber alerts, flood warnings, and urgent messages from the President.

Tobin said the good thing about the system is that it accesses all kinds of cell phones and carriers. The downside is that it is not designed for speed or situations where seconds matter.

Bill Steele, director of outreach for the Pacific Northwest Seismology Network, said a test in three counties in February found that alerts via WEA took up to 20 to 30 seconds to reach multiple users. “Even a 10-second delay is not good for earthquake early warning,” he said.

For something like the 2001 Niskwale earthquake near Olympia – the most common type of major earthquake in the state – ShakeAlert should theoretically be able to provide an 8-12 second warning in the Seattle and North Puget Sound area. Steele said that with potential WEA lag, alerts may not reach people until the Earth has actually moved.

He added that late warnings can still be valuable, helping to overcome confusion and confirm that an earthquake has already occurred. “This is useful information, but it is not an early warning of earthquakes.”

Fortunately, damaging earthquakes don’t happen often in Washington, and Tobin said he expects the state’s media gap to be filled in the near future by app developers.

He added that it would be best for all mobile phone companies to follow Google’s lead and create earthquake alerts in their systems. Geffen said the USGS had discussed the idea with Apple but had no solution.

Public notifications are the latest addition to ShakeAlert’s repertoire, but the system is already used across a wide range of industries and government operations to warn employees and directly control machines. BART trains in the San Francisco area, for example, are wired to slow down and stop when they receive a notification of impending shaking of the ground, just like high-speed trains in Japan.

Dickson said that using ShakeAlert to prevent or reduce damage to infrastructure has huge potential. “You can save lives, protect a lot of property, reduce impacts, and speed up recovery times.”

Dan Irvine, co-founder of Woodinville-based Varius, said the idea is only just beginning to emerge in Washington, where water utilities lead the way. The small company is licensed by the USGS to provide hardware and software that connects ShakeAlert directly to the control systems without the need for an application and there is no delay in wireless emergency alerts. Valves can be closed automatically to prevent draining tanks and tanks, pumps can be shut off to avoid damage and gas lines in boilers can be shut off – all without human intervention.

The City of Anacortes linked alerts to its communications systems, so workers in basements or underground trenches would have time to get out of harm’s way. Seattle is launching a pilot project to use alerts to call elevators to the ground floor of Seattle’s 62-story City Hall so that no one gets trapped during an earthquake. Other cities plan to automatically open fire station doors before the ground shakes, and they may even close.

In Snohomish County, the Stanwood Camano School District has established a direct link to its PA system.

“It’s the sound of a fog, and then he says, ‘An earthquake is imminent,” said Liz Jamison, District Capital Projects Manager. Duck, cover and catch, “then explode a few tones.”

David Applegate, Acting Director of USGS, expects an explosion of apps, including some that even experts would not have imagined. “Making this signal available and then being able to unleash creativity in both the public and private sectors … is what matters,” he said.

The USGS and other scientists are also continuing to improve the network and hope to add more than 500 additional seismic stations over the next few years – including 100 others in the Pacific Northwest – to speed up seismic detection and improve warning times.

Tobin said: “We are confident that we have the ability now to quickly detect large earthquakes around the most densely populated areas in Washington.” “Now we only need to populate the least populated parts of the state.”

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