Ellington

The West Coast’s leading seismologists are working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to establish an earthquake early warning system in Washington, Oregon and California. The seismologists, from the UW, UC Berkley and the California Institute of Technology are currently analyzing the system’s effectiveness, which would be developed and created by the USGS.

UW seismologists attended a conference with the other universities and community representatives at UC Berkeley last week to discuss the benefits of an earthquake early warning system along the west coast.

John Vidale, current director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) and UW professor, said that while the system is not a new idea for the seismologists, recent events in Japan have brought it to the public’s attention.

The system would have sensors placed along earthquake fault lines to detect the waves of an earthquake. As soon as the first waves reached the sensors, they would send an immediate message to computers, which would in turn scan the data, determine the size and place of the earthquake and send out a message via cell phones, TVs and computers. The entire process would take about five to eight seconds after the waves reached the sensors.

Bill Steele, director of information services at PSNS, said that the west coast of North America has thousands of fault lines, many of which are still hidden due to glacier runoff. The Cascadia Fault, the Seattle Fault and the San Andreas Fault are a few of the major ones along the coast that are active and have produced significant earthquakes in past years.

Vidale said these faults are a threat to the cities that lie nearby and that some seismologists, like himself, believe that a warning system could prevent possible damage.

“We realized it could work decades ago,” Vidale said. “The idea is simple; if there is an earthquake, we can have instruments right on top of it detecting it and figuring out how big it is. Once we know where the earthquake is, and how big it is, we can broadcast a warning that shaking is on the way.”

Vidale estimated that the system would take about five years to set up due to the number of instruments required, the data that needs to be gathered, and the time it would take to test the system. The system would cost around $50 million in Oregon and Washington and would be paid for by the federal government. California’s system, due to the numerous amount of fault lines in the state, would cost closer to $80 million.

Not everyone, however, is certain the early warning system would be worth it.

“I personally am not convinced [that the system would work],” Steve Malone, former director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) and UW emeritus research professor, said. “I don’t know that it has been proven that it would be useful. It sounds, intuitively, that it would be great to have 10, 20, 30 seconds of warning, maybe even more, but what it really comes down to is what people would do [with that warning.]”

Steele said that while he agrees there are other aspects to consider with the project, he believes it would be worthwhile.

“We don’t want to go and spend money creating products that really aren’t useful,” Steele said. “That’s why it’s always important to talk to the stakeholders first and get their input before we go down this development path.”

Steele brought representatives from Boeing, Microsoft and Intel to the conference to get their point of view and determine whether the system would be useful for them.

“I was encouraged that there was a lot of enthusiasm from our representatives from corporations and that they feel they have ways they could really utilize this system,” Steele said.

Malone, who also attended the conference, is less enthusiastic.

“There are all of these types of things [that need to be considered] that aren’t seismological or geophysical; they are sociological, economic and political; and, I think seismologists don’t know enough about them,” Malone said. “My concern is that the seismologists are the only ones working on this. We don’t know the whole picture. It’s much, much bigger than the technical aspects of generating an alarm. Other people should really get involved in making this system.”

Malone expressed his opinion in an article titled “A warning about early warning” that was published in Seismological Research Letters in 2008. He argues that it is wrong to assume people will automatically react sensibly to a warning. False alarms are also an issue he worries about.

“If the alarm went off and it’s a false alarm, and now it goes off and it’s real, people will go, ‘Ah it’s a false alarm,’” Malone said. “Now there are some automated systems that could be useful, but those systems also need to be able to handle false alarms; they’re inevitable.”

Steele said that educating the public on how to prepare and react is necessary to the system’s success.

“I think it would be worth it if we do it right, if we made sure that [emergency management agencies] have the resources they need to really have a well prepared community to receive this warning.”

Reach reporter Jillian Stampher at news@dailyuw.com.