What's going on. I'm rich damiro This is Rich on Tech Quick Hits. Joining me today is Robert de Gruzzi is the Shake Alert National Coordinator for the Earthquake Science Center at the USGS. Robert, thanks so much for joining me today.
Thank you.
So tell me what it's been like for your team for the past seventy two hours, because there's been a lot of seismic activity in the southern California area.
It's been pretty incredible. We've had this sequence of a magnitude six point four and on July fourth, and magnitude seven point one last night, plus many thousands of aftershocks. So it's been a very interesting time for us. And in my particular role, I work with the earthquake Early Warning program for USGS, and so that's been another interesting piece of the entire operation for us.
So, the early warning system. We've heard talk about this in California for many years. Tell me, so the main component that's different this time around is that a lot of average people had this shake alert la app so is that new this time?
The shakeload real quick early warning system is being implemented in California, Oregon, and Washington, and so the USGS's role in this whole process is to actually detect the ground motion out in the field, to move that information to a processing center and make these shake alerts the information
about the event available for delivery. And so the piece that most people are asking about now is the City of Los Angeles has recently released shakeload LA and app where they deliver shake alerts to the residents of Los Angeles County.
And so they're tapping into your system basically to deliver those alerts.
That's right.
So how different are those two systems? Are you know, passing along that information to them or I mean because this took a while to implement, for yes, the regular volts.
So the USGS is the source of the shake alerts. And what we do is we we we issue them and everybody that is connected to us delivers them on our behalf. So we we basically produced the information and then we handed off to people to deliver and the City of Los Angeles the shakewoad LA app is one of those ways that we get the message out to people.
Okay, so there's been some talk about a shake or LA app and I've been kind of a vocal you know, a vocal I've been talking about it on Twitter a lot because I was surprised that I did not get an alert for the first earthquake, and then for the second one, I didn't get it. What happened in this scenario here, So part.
Of the information that we make available for delivery is an estimation of how much the ground is going to shake, And it turns out with both earthquakes, the initial information that we sent out the estimates gave the shaking level in Los Angeles County it was below a certain level. It was below a certain threshold where we would not have passed or the Shake with LA app would not have passed along that information to the residents of LA County.
So it's more about what the settings are for Shake loord LA and when they deliver the message that we produce. So we produce the messages. They just didn't deliver it, and that's not at the fault of the City of Los Angeles. It was an agreed upon threshold to deliver those messages.
Mainly because if you had a lower threshold, you might get these messages all time.
That's right. So there's that delicate balance between sending messages and for us, the basic idea is to only deliver messages to people who may experience potentially damaging shaking. And what we mean by that is stuff starts falling off shells or walls, or the shakings where people can't stand. That's where we want people to really know. In many cases, if you just feel an event, you'll be getting a lot of those types of messages. So we want to make sure that we're not over alerting people.
And in the city of LA for this instance, there wasn't really damaging shaking. It was more of a feeling of shaking, and that's the delineation.
Yes, in the County of Los Angeles, the initial estimation of shaking in Los Angeles County was below that that that potentially damaging shaking level. We've been doing some modeling on that ever since last night, and it's it's likely that there could have been in Los Angeles County. So we're looking into this and trying to figure out a way to basically strike that happy balance.
And I saw that you guys did do an update for the app overnight and you said on the app, or at least on a tweet, that you lowered the threshold from a I think it was a four to a three or five four.
Yeah. So what's really important to really mention is that the shakela la app is managed and developed by the City of Los Angeles, and we're providing them a lot of advice. And my understanding of what they did last night is that on the shakeload la app there's a feature where you can look at recent earthquakes, and what they did was is they moved the recent earthquakes that you see on the screen from the magnitude four two magnitude three, so there would be more events shown on those maps.
Okay, And how much of a heads up should we expect from the early warning system?
So the shakeleariers quick early warning system should be able to provide people with seconds to tens of seconds of warning before shaking arise at their location. And what we're telling people is is that if you feel shaking, don't wait for the alert drop government hold on. The opposite also is important that if you get the alert, don't wait for the shaking drop government hold on. So it's either the shaking or the alert that will tell you to take that action.
Are there any limitations of this system at this point? Like can it get better? In the future.
It's absolutely getting better all the time. And I think this is why working with the City of LA is so critical, because there is the sort of technical infrastructure part of it that the USGS is improving all the time. But then there's also the delivery side. We're trying as much as possible to reduce the times between when we make the alert available for delivery and when that message is actually you know, ends up in someone's hands in they're on their phone or wherever else.
And what about folks outside of LA County or City of Los Angeles, Like will this app work for everyone? Or are there other resources that people should be aware of?
So the the app actually works for all residents of Los Angeles County. So even though the City of LA is producing the app, everyone in LA County would potentially receive a shake alert. And there are other parallel, parallel programs that are being put together projects for building apps, but those are still in testing mode. It's really the City of La app that has taken things to this place where they're actually sending out alerts to people in LA County.
Are there any other resources you recommend in general, like do we follow a certain Twitter account? I know, there's a bunch of earthquake apps on you know, the app stores, and are those any good?
So most of the apps that you'll see online are the apps that subscribe to the same information from the USGS about events that have already happened. With distinguishes Shake Alert from all the other types of programs that are out there is that we are providing some time potentially sometime before shaking rise at your location. So there really isn't anything other than shake La that's out there that's operating in this capacity in La County. Now, there are
a few other apps that are are being developed. There's one called quick Alert, which is being developed by a company called Early Warning Labs, which is based in Santa Monica, but that's also in testing mode. That's really pretty much it. If people want to keep updated with the Shake Alert earth Quick Early Warning system, we recommend they follow our Twitter feed at and the addresses at USGS underscore shake Alert.
Anything else that folks should know about these, I mean, because it's definitely an interesting time in southern California, know where you just I mean, rarely do you feel the ground shaking two times in two days and three days?
You know, absolutely, And you know this, this is the largest shaking that we felt in this region in about twenty years, and so we're learning a lot from this earthquakes. So there's a lot to learn about earthquakes from these events. But what's also critical too, is that this is the way that we're going to learn how to improve the
earthquake early warning system. I mean, it's one thing to do stimulated earthquakes, it's one thing to do modeling, but to actually have the real earthquakes, have the real events and see what they do, it'll it'll give us that insight we need to make an even better system so people should not be alarmed the fact that things happen the way they did this time. This is actually a stepping stone to a much better shake with system, and.
We feel like the APP is going to be in a better position at this point for another alert in the future.
Yes, we're actually having discussions with folks at the City of Los Angeles this week to make further changes.
Okay, Great Roberts Grout from Shake Alert, the Shake Alert National coordinator for the Earthquakes Time Center at USGS. Thanks so much for joining me today. I know you have a busy weekend. Here it's a Saturday, and I know it's a holiday weekend, so very interesting timing for these earthquakes. But I guess they're not on anyone's particular schedule. Huh.
That's right, yep, that we're here whenever they happen.
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