It was formally introduced just three days into 2019, but the city of Los Angeles’ new earthquake early response app, ShakeAlertLA, has topped a most-downloaded list and officials hope it may have statewide and even national impact — even as the state itself closes in on early earthquake warning (EEW).
In less than one week of availability, ShakeAlertLA made Apple’s Top 10 downloads list and became the most-downloaded app to Android devices, an official from AT&T, which created the app, said Jan. 8 during the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But earthquakes are a natural occurrence statewide; and so city officials plan in coming weeks to meet with their counterparts from nearby Orange and Ventura counties in hopes of expanding interest in the app, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Jeff Gorell said. Ultimately, however, the city’s ambitions for the app are even greater, Gorell said during a roundtable with AT&T and the city of Las Vegas at CES 2019, indicating the new app is “more a pilot, essentially, for the rest of the nation.”
“We’re hoping that the success we have in Los Angeles will allow other cities and jurisdictions to want to — Sacramento, the state Legislature — to jump in and take a leadership role in expediting the continued buildout of systems statewide,” Gorell said during the event. Afterward, he told Techwire the process of onboarding other local jurisdictions has to be deliberate and not imposed — but said he thinks Los Angeles’ success will resonate in Sacramento, where the concept has some “champions.”
“I think now that we’re a pilot for people to look at, a proof of concept, I think that you’re going to see the Legislature act and hopefully the governor. Then, really, the federal government, I think Congress and the White House need to make a concerted effort to expedite the deployment of the sensors in the ground, upgrade all the servers; and ultimately, provide the resources needed so that the states, the 10 top earthquake states in the United States, can easily adopt the technology that’s best for them,” Gorell said. That technology, he added, may or may not be in app form.
Los Angeles Chief Information Officer Ted Ross said what’s “really unique about the conversation now” is how officials were able to join around 250 ground sensors with low-latency networks and user interfaces, which hasn’t been possible before. He said it has a “tremendous” effect on saving life and property and, in an interview, praised its release for not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
“This is a good, I think, example of government acting a lot like the private sector, of getting out there and innovating on something and building on top of it. And demonstrating to our colleagues and demonstrating to other organizations the art of the possible. Who wins? Residents, business, the people who visit Los Angeles,” Ross told Techwire.
It's unclear the extent to which the state Legislature might take a position on ShakeAlert, but Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, a member of the California Legislative Technology and Innovation Caucus, said via email: “It is vitally important that our state and local governments work to improve disaster preparedness and response, particularly when it comes to using technology to communicate information more effectively and keep our residents safe.”
Meanwhile, however, the state continues to pursue a statewide EEW system in a partnership among the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the University of California at Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology and the California Geological Survey. “A Business Plan for the California Earthquake Early Warning System,” prepared by The Blue Sky Consulting Group for CalOES and released in May, found that residents “are on the cusp of realizing the benefits of EEW,” and set a timeline of having the system fully operational after 2021. However, the report pointed out 283 seismic stations, 294 GPS stations and 33 primary and secondary telemetry sites remained unfunded, helping account for $16.4 million in capital and one-time costs.
The Orange County Register reported that it could cost $60 million to finish the West Coast’s sensor network and data infrastructure, according to the partners that worked on ShakeAlert, with an estimated $38 million in annual maintenance costs. But, the Register reported, the pace of funding has picked up, with a $22.9 million federal allocation last year doubling that of the previous year — and state funding hitting $15 million, also a new high mark.
Ryan Arba, branch chief for the Cal OES seismic hazards program, told Techwire the agency’s focus has been on efforts other than app-based EEW — but it has already funded the installation of 433 sensors in two rounds at a cost of $21.5 million. The installation of 183 sensors funded during the first round of funding in 2016 continues and must be finished by the end of June, Arba said. These have been installed around the state from near the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park northeast of San Diego to Santa Clara and north, in the northern part of the state.
“Our focus has been on how do we leverage wireless emergency alerts first? We’ve been trying to work with the Federal Communications Commission as well as the telecommunication companies such as AT&T and Verizon on determining the appropriate way to use wireless emergency alerts,” Arba said. He noted that the alerts are already programmed in virtually all modern cellphones and don’t require a separate download. In February, Cal OES and USGS will collaborate to deliver a daytime test “shake alert” via wireless alert to the cellphones of around 40,000 users believed to be present at the time in Oakland’s Lakeside district. An exact date for the test has not yet been set.
