The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) announced Monday that it will award more than $12.5 million to seven universities and a nonprofit to support operation, improvement and expansion of the ShakeAlert early warning system for California, Oregon and Washington. The awards, USGS said in a news release, will fund the first year of a new set of two-year pacts with the University of California at Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Central Washington University, the University of Oregon, the University of Washington, the University of Nevada at Reno, UNAVCO Inc., and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). Among the takeaways:
• USGS said it has bought around $1.5 million in new sensor equipment to expand and improve the ShakeAlert system, which it indicated is part of $21.1 million in funding to the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program for ShakeAlert approved by Congress earlier this year. Its university pacts include incorporating “real-time GPS observations” into ShakeAlert, along with furthering “development of scientific algorithms to rapidly detect potentially damaging earthquakes”; and additional warning system tests.
“About 60 organizations are current test users, from sectors such as utilities, transportation, emergency management, education, state and city governments and industry. Several of these are engaged in pilot projects to demonstrate the practical use of ShakeAlert in a variety of applications,” USGS said.
• Among these is the free MyShake app for Android users, spearheaded by UC Berkeley along with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (CalOES). The app exploits smartphone sensors to sense earthquake vibrations, then send anonymized data to a central warning system. It’s being tested by CalOES and USGS as part of a pilot of indeterminate length, Jennifer Strauss, external relations officer at Berkeley Seismology Lab, told Techwire via email.
“We do plan to increase the number of testers over time with the hope that in the future we will be able to send the alerts publicly in approved regions,” said Strauss, who is regional coordinator for ShakeAlert in Northern California. Approved regions will be determined by USGS and CalOES.
• Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said last week that the city’s own third-party app, ShakeAlertLA — which became a top seller after its introduction Dec. 31 — has been reworked to alert residents to earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or larger. Previously, the app alerted residents to earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or larger — but was criticized following the July 4 and July 5 earthquakes in Ridgecrest for not publicizing the temblor more widely.
Robert de Groot, USGS physical scientist, told Techwire that one potential consequence of lowering the reporting threshold is that residents could become blasé about taking cover if they receive frequent alerts.
“We’re very concerned that people are going to sort of make decisions about, ‘Oh, it’s another one of those, I’ll just forget it, I’m not going to deal with it,’” de Groot said.
• ShakeAlert is the name USGS uses for its earthquake early warning system, in development for 13 years, and which delivers message to governments seconds after registering a temblor, informing them a quake is happening. (To date, around 780 of 1,115 seismic instruments have been installed statewide.) So-called third-party apps like ShakeAlertLA then react, based on the USGS data they receive.
Coincidentally, ShakeAlert is also the name of the statewide app being developed by CalOES and partners — and still being “operationalized” for an October arrival, CalOES spokesman Robb Mayberry confirmed to Techwire.
