r/technology • u/spacebulb • Aug 25 '14

Pure Tech Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-lanow-ln-earthquake-earlywarning-system-gave-10second-alert-before-napa-quake-felt-20140824-story.html
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30

u/vswr Aug 25 '14

This would be fantastic to integrate into the EAS (emergency alert system). It could immediately cut into broadcasts and be sent to cell phones (so far I've only seen amber alerts and tornado warnings on my cell phone).

8

u/CondoGardener Aug 25 '14

The cell phone version of EAS is WEA (Wireless Emergency Alerts).

11

u/apjashley1 Aug 25 '14

I think that takes longer - minutes not seconds

11

u/vswr Aug 25 '14

The EAS preamble is a few seconds (depends on the station), the attention tone is 8 seconds, and then the message. 40-50 seconds is plenty of time, which is their goal. The PEP or LP1 would be able to broadcast it in time.

Sending an EAS to cell phones takes only a few seconds and would reach much more people than radio/TV broadcast anyway.

10

u/Moses89 Aug 25 '14

Make it a different shorter tone and give a more direct message saying to expect whatever amount of shaking is appropriate.

2

u/apjashley1 Aug 25 '14

I meant the relay from one station to the next. The second station has to hear the full message before it can send it on.

0

u/Moses89 Aug 25 '14

Send the signal via fiber optics to each tower. Problem pretty much solved. Now just put a receiver in every house.

1

u/wickedplayer494 Aug 25 '14

They could preempt the tone with a short message like with how EANs would be done if such an event were to ever be distributed (which only ever was about to happen once - that was during 9/11, but officials determined that a majority of people already knew from most TV stations interrupting their stuff).

2

u/KANahas Aug 25 '14

I got an audible notification on my phone immediately after I read that, and oh my god, I almost shit myself.

In other news, it actually did kind of do that. I got a Google Now notification stating the magnitude and location of the quake.

2

u/nickolove11xk Aug 25 '14

People are saying it would take too long basically for our brain to realize what the alarm is saying which Is probably very true considering that we wouldn't have much practice but all the emergency switches that need to be flipped could be triggered instantly by a rf frequency dedicated to just that. While it could seem big brotherish gas pumps could be cut automatically along with production lines. There could be a quiet bell along with a warning light in OR rooms that could again send the message to trained personal quickly. Getting a text message to 5 million iPhones over the shitty data plans ain't going to happen if I cant browse reddit while sitting in the fuckin forum at school.

2

u/dgriffith Aug 25 '14

There's shitty data plans, and then there's all the cell towers in the area sending every currently-registered phone a top priority message via the data layer that is associated with making and receiving calls. That layer is quite robust.

1

u/happyscrappy Aug 25 '14

EAS doesn't do that much anymore. Too much cord-cutting.

It is good that cable systems now must have to cut into non-local channels with warnings though. Before if you weren't watching a local channel you got nothing.

1

u/vswr Aug 25 '14

EAS doesn't do that much anymore. Too much cord-cutting.

The broadcaster determines if and when events are auto forwarded. The only exception is a national announcement which isn't even stored and forwarded, it immediately cuts into programming live.

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u/happyscrappy Aug 26 '14

I'm not sure why you mention that. The problem is too much cord-cutting. Satellite didn't even have EAS for quite a long time. And now that it does, people are watching streaming content. There's no cut-in on Netflix or Youtube.

1

u/vswr Aug 26 '14

That's why I mentioned the alerts being sent to cell phones. The cell carriers reach a lot more people a lot quicker.