Speaker 1: What's going on. I'm rich damiro This is Rich on
Speaker 1: Tech Quick Hits. Joining me today is Robert de Gruzzi
Speaker 1: is the Shake Alert National Coordinator for the Earthquake Science
Speaker 1: Center at the USGS. Robert, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: me today.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So tell me what it's been like for your team
Speaker 1: for the past seventy two hours, because there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of seismic activity in the southern California area.
Speaker 2: It's been pretty incredible. We've had this sequence of a
Speaker 2: magnitude six point four and on July fourth, and magnitude
Speaker 2: seven point one last night, plus many thousands of aftershocks.
Speaker 2: So it's been a very interesting time for us. And
Speaker 2: in my particular role, I work with the earthquake Early
Speaker 2: Warning program for USGS, and so that's been another interesting
Speaker 2: piece of the entire operation for us.
Speaker 1: So, the early warning system. We've heard talk about this
Speaker 1: in California for many years. Tell me, so the main
Speaker 1: component that's different this time around is that a lot
Speaker 1: of average people had this shake alert la app so
Speaker 1: is that new this time?
Speaker 2: The shakeload real quick early warning system is being implemented
Speaker 2: in California, Oregon, and Washington, and so the USGS's role
Speaker 2: in this whole process is to actually detect the ground
Speaker 2: motion out in the field, to move that information to
Speaker 2: a processing center and make these shake alerts the information
Speaker 2: about the event available for delivery. And so the piece
Speaker 2: that most people are asking about now is the City
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles has recently released shakeload LA and app
Speaker 2: where they deliver shake alerts to the residents of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles County.
Speaker 1: And so they're tapping into your system basically to deliver
Speaker 1: those alerts.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: So how different are those two systems? Are you know,
Speaker 1: passing along that information to them or I mean because
Speaker 1: this took a while to implement, for yes, the regular volts.
Speaker 2: So the USGS is the source of the shake alerts.
Speaker 2: And what we do is we we we issue them
Speaker 2: and everybody that is connected to us delivers them on
Speaker 2: our behalf. So we we basically produced the information and
Speaker 2: then we handed off to people to deliver and the
Speaker 2: City of Los Angeles the shakewoad LA app is one
Speaker 2: of those ways that we get the message out to people.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's been some talk about a shake or
Speaker 1: LA app and I've been kind of a vocal you know,
Speaker 1: a vocal I've been talking about it on Twitter a
Speaker 1: lot because I was surprised that I did not get
Speaker 1: an alert for the first earthquake, and then for the
Speaker 1: second one, I didn't get it. What happened in this
Speaker 1: scenario here, So part.
Speaker 2: Of the information that we make available for delivery is
Speaker 2: an estimation of how much the ground is going to shake,
Speaker 2: And it turns out with both earthquakes, the initial information
Speaker 2: that we sent out the estimates gave the shaking level
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles County it was below a certain level.
Speaker 2: It was below a certain threshold where we would not
Speaker 2: have passed or the Shake with LA app would not
Speaker 2: have passed along that information to the residents of LA County.
Speaker 2: So it's more about what the settings are for Shake
Speaker 2: loord LA and when they deliver the message that we produce.
Speaker 2: So we produce the messages. They just didn't deliver it,
Speaker 2: and that's not at the fault of the City of
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. It was an agreed upon threshold to deliver
Speaker 2: those messages.
Speaker 1: Mainly because if you had a lower threshold, you might
Speaker 1: get these messages all time.
Speaker 2: That's right. So there's that delicate balance between sending messages
Speaker 2: and for us, the basic idea is to only deliver
Speaker 2: messages to people who may experience potentially damaging shaking. And
Speaker 2: what we mean by that is stuff starts falling off
Speaker 2: shells or walls, or the shakings where people can't stand.
Speaker 2: That's where we want people to really know. In many cases,
Speaker 2: if you just feel an event, you'll be getting a
Speaker 2: lot of those types of messages. So we want to
Speaker 2: make sure that we're not over alerting people.
Speaker 1: And in the city of LA for this instance, there
Speaker 1: wasn't really damaging shaking. It was more of a feeling
Speaker 1: of shaking, and that's the delineation.
Speaker 2: Yes, in the County of Los Angeles, the initial estimation
Speaker 2: of shaking in Los Angeles County was below that that
Speaker 2: that potentially damaging shaking level. We've been doing some modeling
Speaker 2: on that ever since last night, and it's it's likely
Speaker 2: that there could have been in Los Angeles County. So
Speaker 2: we're looking into this and trying to figure out a
Speaker 2: way to basically strike that happy balance.
Speaker 1: And I saw that you guys did do an update
Speaker 1: for the app overnight and you said on the app,
Speaker 1: or at least on a tweet, that you lowered the
Speaker 1: threshold from a I think it was a four to
Speaker 1: a three or five four.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what's really important to really mention is that
Speaker 2: the shakela la app is managed and developed by the
Speaker 2: City of Los Angeles, and we're providing them a lot
Speaker 2: of advice. And my understanding of what they did last
Speaker 2: night is that on the shakeload la app there's a
Speaker 2: feature where you can look at recent earthquakes, and what
Speaker 2: they did was is they moved the recent earthquakes that
Speaker 2: you see on the screen from the magnitude four two
Speaker 2: magnitude three, so there would be more events shown on
Speaker 2: those maps.
Speaker 1: Okay, And how much of a heads up should we
Speaker 1: expect from the early warning system?
Speaker 2: So the shakeleariers quick early warning system should be able
Speaker 2: to provide people with seconds to tens of seconds of
Speaker 2: warning before shaking arise at their location. And what we're
Speaker 2: telling people is is that if you feel shaking, don't
Speaker 2: wait for the alert drop government hold on. The opposite
Speaker 2: also is important that if you get the alert, don't
Speaker 2: wait for the shaking drop government hold on. So it's
Speaker 2: either the shaking or the alert that will tell you
Speaker 2: to take that action.
Speaker 1: Are there any limitations of this system at this point?
Speaker 1: Like can it get better? In the future.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely getting better all the time. And I think
Speaker 2: this is why working with the City of LA is
Speaker 2: so critical, because there is the sort of technical infrastructure
Speaker 2: part of it that the USGS is improving all the time.
Speaker 2: But then there's also the delivery side. We're trying as
Speaker 2: much as possible to reduce the times between when we
Speaker 2: make the alert available for delivery and when that message
Speaker 2: is actually you know, ends up in someone's hands in
Speaker 2: they're on their phone or wherever else.
Speaker 1: And what about folks outside of LA County or City
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, Like will this app work for everyone?
Speaker 1: Or are there other resources that people should be aware of?
Speaker 2: So the the app actually works for all residents of
Speaker 2: Los Angeles County. So even though the City of LA
Speaker 2: is producing the app, everyone in LA County would potentially
Speaker 2: receive a shake alert. And there are other parallel, parallel
Speaker 2: programs that are being put together projects for building apps,
Speaker 2: but those are still in testing mode. It's really the
Speaker 2: City of La app that has taken things to this
Speaker 2: place where they're actually sending out alerts to people in
Speaker 2: LA County.
Speaker 1: Are there any other resources you recommend in general, like
Speaker 1: do we follow a certain Twitter account? I know, there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of earthquake apps on you know, the app stores,
Speaker 1: and are those any good?
Speaker 2: So most of the apps that you'll see online are
Speaker 2: the apps that subscribe to the same information from the
Speaker 2: USGS about events that have already happened. With distinguishes Shake
Speaker 2: Alert from all the other types of programs that are
Speaker 2: out there is that we are providing some time potentially
Speaker 2: sometime before shaking rise at your location. So there really
Speaker 2: isn't anything other than shake La that's out there that's
Speaker 2: operating in this capacity in La County. Now, there are
Speaker 2: a few other apps that are are being developed. There's
Speaker 2: one called quick Alert, which is being developed by a
Speaker 2: company called Early Warning Labs, which is based in Santa Monica,
Speaker 2: but that's also in testing mode. That's really pretty much it.
Speaker 2: If people want to keep updated with the Shake Alert
Speaker 2: earth Quick Early Warning system, we recommend they follow our
Speaker 2: Twitter feed at and the addresses at USGS underscore shake Alert.
Speaker 1: Anything else that folks should know about these, I mean,
Speaker 1: because it's definitely an interesting time in southern California, know
Speaker 1: where you just I mean, rarely do you feel the
Speaker 1: ground shaking two times in two days and three days?
Speaker 2: You know, absolutely, And you know this, this is the
Speaker 2: largest shaking that we felt in this region in about
Speaker 2: twenty years, and so we're learning a lot from this earthquakes.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot to learn about earthquakes from these events.
Speaker 2: But what's also critical too, is that this is the
Speaker 2: way that we're going to learn how to improve the
Speaker 2: earthquake early warning system. I mean, it's one thing to
Speaker 2: do stimulated earthquakes, it's one thing to do modeling, but
Speaker 2: to actually have the real earthquakes, have the real events
Speaker 2: and see what they do, it'll it'll give us that
Speaker 2: insight we need to make an even better system so
Speaker 2: people should not be alarmed the fact that things happen
Speaker 2: the way they did this time. This is actually a
Speaker 2: stepping stone to a much better shake with system, and.
Speaker 1: We feel like the APP is going to be in
Speaker 1: a better position at this point for another alert in
Speaker 1: the future.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're actually having discussions with folks at the City
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles this week to make further changes.
Speaker 1: Okay, Great Roberts Grout from Shake Alert, the Shake Alert
Speaker 1: National coordinator for the Earthquakes Time Center at USGS. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining me today. I know you have
Speaker 1: a busy weekend. Here it's a Saturday, and I know
Speaker 1: it's a holiday weekend, so very interesting timing for these earthquakes.
Speaker 1: But I guess they're not on anyone's particular schedule. Huh.
Speaker 2: That's right, yep, that we're here whenever they happen.
Speaker 1: All right, Thanks so much for listening to the show.
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