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MyShake: A Window Into Shakealert User Experience

Session: Earthquake Early Warning Live in California! Current Status and Challenges II

Type: Oral

Date: 4/23/2021

Presentation Time: 02:45 PM Pacific

Description: 

MyShake is a smartphone app designed to harness and synergize public interest in earthquakes. The app provides users the information they need, and also collects acceleration waveforms and user experience data. In 2019 the app was launched by Governor Gavin Newsom in California becoming the official state app to deliver earthquake early warnings generated by ShakeAlert. This resulted in over a million downloads by users wanting alerts, and simultaneously harnessed over a million new accelerometers that now provide ground motion data in earthquakes.

After operating for 18 months, the MyShake data is now providing key insights into the effectiveness of earthquake early warning alerts, and the ground motions that our users experience. By recording the time that a phone receives an alert and the acceleration waveform from the same phone, we make direct observations of the warning time and peak ground acceleration across the alert region. ShakeAlert's public alerting goal is to alert all those who experience shaking intensity of 3 or greater. With the direct PGA observations from MyShake phones we can assess how close we come to that goal, and how significant are the limitations of current ground motion prediction equations.

Presenting Author: Richard Allen

Student Presenter: No

Authors