West Coast to Get Free Early Earthquake Warnings
- John Cornelison
- December 1, 2014
Table of Contents
According to the LA Times, the entire west coast should get access to the first generation of early earthquake warnings as early as next year. Dependent on congress’ upcoming vote, the budget would be some $16 million annually.
The new system would be the first generation, after a bare-bones prototype system has proven the concept over the last year or so in a limited set of locations. California would go from 200 to 400 sensors while 275 sensors are apparently all that are currently planned for Oregon and Washington.
Specialized systems have been in place for years. For instance the Alaskan Way Viaduct automatically is closed on an early warning system installed in June 2011.
Based on a distributed set of sensors, the warnings travel at nearly the speed of light - while the seismic waves travel closer to the speed of sound. That adds up to a minute of advance warning for locations 150 miles away from the epicenter, and even 5 seconds of advance warnings allows elevators to brake, fire departments to open their doors, and other automated systems to kick in – potentially saving hundreds of millions through out a region.
AT&T has started selling portable cellular antennas so customers can provide their own wireless coverage in disaster-struck or remote areas. Typically cell phone companies deploy mobile trucks with larger mobile cell towers, but this gives responders control over their own deployments – albeit with fairly limited service: