Join Parma Today
California’s earthquake early warning system may have taken a step forward this week when officials conducted a test in downtown Oakland.
The USGS, in partnership with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), the city of Oakland and Alameda County, issued Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) soliciting a response to a survey to about 40,000 people in a 60-acre block. It went well, but not perfectly.
About 970 who received the alert responded. The alert said it was a test of the California earthquake warning system and that no action had to be taken other than responding to a survey. The survey inquired about what time they received the alert; what kind of cellphone they had and the provider; and how they would like to receive alerts in the future.
“Some of the devices displayed the message about four seconds after,” said Robert-Michael de Groot of the U.S. Geological Survey, and one of the coordinators of the ShakeAlert system. “It was a great first test to see where the latencies are. We want to work with FEMA and the cellphone industry to improve the delivery times because this is where a lot of the challenges remain on the delivery side of things.”
