UC Berkely's ShakeAlert system gave them a 10 second warning before this morning's earthquake.
To predict the quakes, scientists use a sensor to detect the arrival of the first round of waves called primary waves or p-waves. These waves are fast but rarely cause any damage. P-waves are followed by secondary waves or s-waves which are slower but do more harm.
However, ShakeAlert doesn’t have enough backing to scale up, according to Richard Allen who directs the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. It will cost $80 million over five years to test and deploy the system and another $12 million a year for operational costs.
Sounds like an interesting system, but one has to wonder. 10 seconds warning for an event that happens every 25 years? I'd spend those 10 seconds trying to figure out where the alarm was coming from. I'd also need to clock it, but I'll bet waking up at 3:30 AM, figuring out something was up, finding some pants, grabbing the cat, and heading outside will take me at least 11 seconds, probably more.
On the other hand, that $80 million + $12 mil/year sounds like money better spent than on the bullet train to nowhere our local politicians are so eager to build. Although the $12 mil/year sounds like somebody's research project is getting fully funded for a while....
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheLink on Monday August 25 2014, @06:52PM
It might also detect other earthquakes and not just one in 25 year ones.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday August 25 2014, @07:08PM
Exactly, and when you read the story, it points out that this warning currently goes nowhere, other than to a few other labs.
Its expected that in the future even 10 seconds won't be enough time for much of anything other than elevators (please tell me this will be hacker proof!), and ordering trains to start braking and airplanes go around or ground stop. But these measures would at most "save" small numbers of people, and the ones it will save are not necessarily the ones at most risk.
It takes longer than 10 seconds to send a text message to every phone in the area, it takes longer to fish your phone out of your pocket/purse to find out what is going on.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday August 25 2014, @07:17PM
When the Big One hits at 7, 8 on the scale, the people affected will be in a much higher radius than that little 6.0.
The 10s turns into 20s or 30s, and lives do get saved. How many Japanese people saved by the tsunami warning?
I'd like my surgeon to have seconds to get his hands out, or at least that scalpel away. You can be sure big red lights will be installed into ORs five minutes after the tech becomes reliable enough for lawyers to smell cash...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 25 2014, @07:28PM
Please tell me you didn't just equate arrival times of a Tsunami with an Earthquake.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday August 25 2014, @07:48PM
I paralleled the ability to react before the damage is done.
You won't run up the hill before the earthquake, but 10 seconds to take the pot of hot oil off the burner might save your house.
I'm being unusually optimistic about people's abilities to act rationally under stress.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Kunasou on Monday August 25 2014, @10:24PM
In my country we don't have many earthquakes but in Japan they use a 10 second system that works quite well:
Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuDonZJCiXQ [youtube.com] (They use another scale, Shindo)
Even though it can be expensive, that system can save lives.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 25 2014, @09:49PM
Set that ringtone to rumble... 10 seconds isn't much, but if you can alert 10 million people and their "smart" surroundings to prepare, $12 million a year doesn't sound too bad. Buy one lottery ticket, get a chance at being _the_ person who doesn't die because there was some warning.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by richtopia on Monday August 25 2014, @07:39PM
I would tell utilities, eg close all nat gas valves now.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday August 25 2014, @08:38PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:55AM
It also gives people enough time to get into a 'safe' space, or at least away from obvious dangers -- once a strong earthquake is underway, actually walking can become surprisingly difficult.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 25 2014, @06:53PM
The warning system is still in early stages. It's expected to be able to provide up to a minute of notice. That's plenty of time for them to put an alert onto emerg radios and for people to realize what's going on and head to a safe location.
Caution: Auto play video because INFORMATION
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Early-Warning-System-Gave-UC-Berkeley-Scientists-10-Second-Alert-When-Bay-Area-Quake-Struck-272584661.html [nbcbayarea.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by KilroySmith on Monday August 25 2014, @07:01PM
And WTF does spending on a bullet train have to do with a P wave?
(Score: 5, Informative) by TrumpetPower! on Monday August 25 2014, @07:05PM
Ten seconds isn't even enough for most humans to realize what's going on, but it's more than enough time for power generation plants and substations to trip breakers, for BART trains to automatically slam on the brakes, for traffic signals to all change to red in all directions, elevators to stop at the very next floor and hold open the doors, and plenty more.
And it can even be enough to trip the old air raid sirens in schools in time for kids to huddle under their desks before the shaking actually starts.
Imagining other possibilities isn't hard...backup generators at hospitals can start up before the power gets disconnected, that sort of thing.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 25 2014, @07:13PM
So you trip all the breakers at the power station and THEN you send out commands to all these automated devices to take action?
Good plan.
Since when has it been necessary to kill an entire power grid simply because some parts of it might short out?
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(Score: 4, Funny) by TrumpetPower! on Monday August 25 2014, @09:17PM
...because civil engineers take random unordered stream-of-consciousness Web forum comments as divine gospel and are too stupid to think about partitioning or sequencing or standalone power systems or anything else like that.
Or perhaps you were under the impression that this is a peer-reviewed journal? I know, it might seem like something from Elsevier at times, but I can assure you that that says much more about them than us.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 26 2014, @05:42PM
If it were from Elsevier. you couldn't afford to read it.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday August 26 2014, @12:31AM
Which part will short out? All they know is that with a big enough earthquake, the shorts will be all over the place. That's a good reason to kill power to an entire grid.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday August 26 2014, @05:49AM
You do know that circuit breakers are distributed all up and down the grid just for this eventuality don't you?
If not, start your investigation at your breaker panel in your own house.
Then go visit your neighborhood substation.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by khakipuce on Tuesday August 26 2014, @08:32AM
Power grid isn't the worst problem as shorts will normall cause trips. But you can shut down the gas supply, there by limitng the fires to what is just in the pipes rather than what is is storeage.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 25 2014, @07:29PM
From the media depictions I've seen at least, doesn't it take almost 10 seconds for air raid sirens to power up in the first place?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by andersjm on Monday August 25 2014, @07:55PM
Forget air raid sirens. With a broadcast message from the base station, everyone's mobile phone can be shouting "EARTHQUAKE" within a fraction of a second.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 26 2014, @05:47PM
Except that this will not warn those who
That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to do that in addition to the sirens. In an emergency you want to send on as many channels as possible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Monday August 25 2014, @10:51PM
One of the big problems after a quake is fire. Other than the electrical system, safe-ing pipelines for gas and petroleum would be an obvious thing. Triggering emergency shutdown for chemical and nuclear plants would be another. In some cases you could get the fire suppression systems started early. You may not be able to stop all the problems, but you can limit how bad the result is.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gman003 on Monday August 25 2014, @08:35PM
On the reaction times from dead sleep, I have some personal data.
Fire alarm at my apartment went off at 1:30AM a few weeks ago. Ten seconds later, I was grabbing a bathrobe, shoes, keys and phone. I was out my door within a minute. Three flights of stairs later, I was outside. Total elapsed time was under 100s. Curiously, the local fire department is within earshot of my apartment, and I was out before the sirens were on.
Had that been an earthquake alarm, I would have been moving before the earthquake hit. I can also say from experience that earthquakes do not wake you up immediately. So the alarm may have only given me a ten-second lead on the earthquake, but probably a thirty-second lead over not having the alarm.
I don't have personal experience with this, but I would imagine most buildings do not collapse immediately as the quake hits. It's not a blastwave, it's a prolonged rumble. If you can get out forty or even ten seconds earlier, that might be the difference from "running out of a collapsing building" and "digging yourself out of the collapsed rubble".
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday August 25 2014, @09:11PM
* That number is probably wildly inaccurate, sorry didn't have time to look up actual travel time.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Monday August 25 2014, @09:28PM
Just go to the obvious authoritative source:
http://xkcd.com/723/ [xkcd.com]
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 25 2014, @09:29PM
According to the top 3 answer in google, P-waves travel at the speed of sound (up to 3 miles a second in granite, less in air/water), S-waves at about 60% of that, and Raleigh waves at about 90%.
"across town" will buy you 10 seconds in a major metropolis.
(Score: 2) by gringer on Tuesday August 26 2014, @01:36AM
Fire alarm at my apartment went off at 1:30AM a few weeks ago. Ten seconds later, I was grabbing a bathrobe, shoes, keys and phone.
When woken from deep sleep, I get a surge of (?adrenaline) and go into "emergency mode". Frequently, this doesn't happen because of an emergency, I get really annoyed about that, and take ages to get back to sleep. But when it is an emergency, I'll have my clothes on and be out of the room before the person (or thing) that woke me up has realised that I'm awake.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by nyder on Tuesday August 26 2014, @01:04AM
Animals always know when a earthquake is coming, seems they'd be the best early sensors.