Shakealert: The Journey From Research to Implementation

Date: 4/24/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Fifth Avenue

For over a decade Caltech and UC Berkeley have been working to develop an earthquake early warning system initially with California as the target region of interest. The USGS provided some early research dollars in 2006 and in 2012 a major grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) accelerated development of ShakeAlert (SA) System in Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, transitioning the program into a West Coast System. A great deal of work was accomplished bringing these research communities together to develop the joint system with direction and management from both University PIs and the USGS who was tasked with managing the newly developed SA system. Once a nascent system, ShakeAlert is rapidly growing it's user base. Built upon an exploration prototype system, ShakeAlert is now in an operational phase, concurrent with phase one of a public roll out.

ShakeAlert is changing the way we think about earthquake preparedness and challenging us to develop loss reduction technologies that can be triggered seconds before shaking arrives. Introducing SA to government agencies, utilities, businesses and the general public is a high priority and, until very recently, a largely unfunded effort. Development and management of early adopters, or pilot partners, of the SA system is needed to learn from successes and demonstrate the utility of the system. Last year, SA Communication, Education, and Outreach (CEO) efforts expanded integrating Emergency Managers and the State Geologic Surveys into the CEO program efforts. This talk will review the development of ShakeAlert CEO and Pilot Project development efforts and challenges we face to prepare our economy and communities to take full advantage of SA early warnings.

Presenting Author: William P. Steele

Authors