Using Shakealert to Protect Water and Sewer Systems in the Pacific Northwest

Date: 4/24/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Fifth Avenue

Water and sewer districts are notoriously vulnerable to damage in strong shaking. Damage to these systems have resulted in public health emergencies, limited fire fighting capabilities, and burdened the response community with huge logistical problems to deliver fresh drinking water to affected populations and remove waste. Water and sewer districts have invested in hardened reservoirs, isolation valves, backup power, and other strategies to improve earthquake resilience. Earthquake early warning provides great opportunities to automatically trigger loss reduction additional actions before strong ground motion arrives.

RH2 Engineering and later spin-off company Varius Inc. have integrated ShakeAlert actuated valves, transfer switches and communication systems into the seismic resilience planning and construction projects for Water and Sewer Districts in the Pacific Northwest. Water and Sewer districts are uniquely suitable for implementation of automated loss reduction actions due to a high cost/benefit ratio for system modifications and a low cost of restoration of normal service in the case of false alerts. This talk will discuss the loss preventive actions that are being taken and the collaborative project development process that is helping dozens of utility districts reduce their vulnerability to earthquake losses. Lessons learned in developing these technologies will be applied to other sectors in 2019.

Presenting Author: Dan Ervin

Authors