DisastersExperts urge deployment of earthquake warning system in California
Scientists say that California has “99.7 percent chance of experiencing a severe earthquake — magnitude 6.7 or higher on the Richter scale — within the next 30 years.” These scientists are urging Congress to consider funding the full-scale deployment of an early-warning earthquake system on the western coast of the United States following successful testing of a prototype and positive results from similar international systems.
Scientists, advocates, and researchers are urging Congress to consider funding the full-scale deployment of an early-warning earthquake system on the western coast of the United States following successful testing of a prototype and positive results from similar international systems.
As theCalifornian reports, countries as diverse as Japan, Mexico, China, Turkey, and Romania have all created early detection systems for ground shaking, but the United States has yet to install such a system despite the fact that its western coastal states are responsible for 71 percent of the nation’s entire tectonic activity. California alone experiences about 10,000 tremors a year — though most cannot be felt.
Doug Given, the head of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Southern California Earthquake Monitoring Project (USGS) with the California Institute of Technology, warned that sooner would be much better than later. “We are sure there will be such a system after a big earthquake. We would like to do it before a big earthquake.”
Given and others are urging Congress to expand the two-year-old ShakeAlert program which sends “trial alerts” to select government agencies and companies within California. Based upon the California Integrated Seismic Network, the system could fairly easily be upgraded to not only inform of tremors, but also predict future ones. They urge that once the testing phase is concluded, the system should go live in California, followed by Oregon and Washington. The system could alert residents up to several minutes before an earthquake occurred, giving people the chance to seek proper cover, as well as halt certain transportation and public works facilities.
The only further requirement would be for more sophisticated sensors to be buried at least eight feet underground along the coast in the form of 400 stations along California, and a shared 100 between Oregon and Washington. USGS estimates that it would need $38 million to set up the system, and only $16 million a year to run it — a paltry sum compared to Japan’s massive expenditures in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima earthquake disaster.
William Leigh, a science advisor for the USGS, predicted that California has a “99.7 percent chance of experiencing a severe earthquake — magnitude 6.7 or higher on the Richter scale — within the next 30 years.”
