ShakeAlert, an earthquake-early warning system, currently being tested in Oregon and California, located a magnitude 6.5 earthquake off the coast of Northern California within 27 seconds. The quake occurred Thursday morning, December 8, on a fault called the Mendocino Transform, not the Cascadia Subduction Zone which is considered to be potentially more dangerous.
Moore Foundation grantee, John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, shared with The Seattle Times, “if the system had been operational, it would have provided coastal communities about 20 seconds of warning before the ground shaking started.”
Last year, the federal government included $5 million in the fiscal year 2015 funding bill, also known as the CROmnibus, to help transition into operation ShakeAlert, and the California Governor, Jerry Brown, signed a 2016-17 state budget that provides $10 million to help launch a statewide earthquake early-warning system.
Read more about the earthquake early-warning system here.
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