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Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
21–30 of 108 posts
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#22A few seconds warning seems like it might be kind of useless for humans, especially at 3am, but it would be cool to have this feed into automatic systems to automatically put them in a "safer" state before an earthquake hits. It might even be that 10 false positives a day are worth it to catch one real event, if the "safing" operation is relatively non-disruptive.
Consider the fact that Japan is swarming with high-speed trains, but there were no derailments during the huge Tōhoku quake.
The biggest advantage of warning is fire prevention, as gas lines can shut automatically. But I also wouldn't mind a little server interrupt telling my machines to get into a consistent state since they're about to be knocked offline.
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#23A few seconds warning seems like it might be kind of useless for humans, especially at 3am, but it would be cool to have this feed into automatic systems to automatically put them in a "safer" state before an earthquake hits. It might even be that 10 false positives a day are worth it to catch one real event, if the "safing" operation is relatively non-disruptive.
The first application that comes to mind is vehicles. Picture a car driving at full speed, or an airplane about to land. With a 10 second early warning, at the very least the driver/pilot could receive a clear visual and audible alert instructing it to slow down / abort approach, brace for impact, alert passengers, etc.
Also: operators of heavy or dangerous machinery, surgeons, construction workers...
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#24A few seconds warning seems like it might be kind of useless for humans, especially at 3am, but it would be cool to have this feed into automatic systems to automatically put them in a "safer" state before an earthquake hits. It might even be that 10 false positives a day are worth it to catch one real event, if the "safing" operation is relatively non-disruptive.
The first application that comes to mind is vehicles. Picture a car driving at full speed, or an airplane about to land. With a 10 second early warning, at the very least the driver/pilot could receive a clear visual and audible alert instructing it to slow down / abort approach, brace for impact, alert passengers, etc. Also: operators of heavy or dangerous machinery, surgeons, construction workers...
Terrific real-life example from Japan:
http://www.railway-technology.com/features/feature122751
"According to Higashi, only one train, running under test without passengers, derailed that day, when it was approaching Sendai, before it was immediately halted by the emergency braking."
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
But there's no way to reliably get information to all people within ten seconds. Even if a text message alert was sent out as soon as the system was triggered, that time, plus the time for even the most phone-ready people to pull out their phone and do the necessary steps to read a message leads to basically no warning at all.
In Japan, all phones (even the iPhone) are setup to emit a loud alarm sound when an earthquake warning is sent, whether your phone is on manner mode or not. The alarm sound is very distinctive and the same for all phones as well as all TV channels.
It says something about Japan that the sound is kind of sweet. In the US, we have the Amber Alert sound specially hand-crafted to make you think the world is ending.
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
But there's no way to reliably get information to all people within ten seconds. Even if a text message alert was sent out as soon as the system was triggered, that time, plus the time for even the most phone-ready people to pull out their phone and do the necessary steps to read a message leads to basically no warning at all.
In Japan, all phones (even the iPhone) are setup to emit a loud alarm sound when an earthquake warning is sent, whether your phone is on manner mode or not. The alarm sound is very distinctive and the same for all phones as well as all TV channels.
Yeah but sometimes they are triggered by mistake. Happened to me one or two years ago, without any actual quake happening.
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#27I couldn't find how I could get this. I got a txt from the USGS but that was after the event and because I set up twitter to txt me that account, does anyone know how to get these early warnings?
I woke up, but in SF it wasn't much of a big deal.
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point is that 10 seconds of warning really translates to 0-5 seconds of warning given the time it takes to send out the warning (text, radio, emergency broadcast). Then add in time to wake and get oriented.
Which might mean getting to a safe place 20 seconds into the earthquake instead of 30 seconds into it. I wouldn't downplay this.
You can get under a table in 5 seconds. That's a change between life and death by having your fridge or large shelf fall on you.
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#29A few seconds warning seems like it might be kind of useless for humans, especially at 3am, but it would be cool to have this feed into automatic systems to automatically put them in a "safer" state before an earthquake hits. It might even be that 10 false positives a day are worth it to catch one real event, if the "safing" operation is relatively non-disruptive.
Consider the fact that Japan is swarming with high-speed trains, but there were no derailments during the huge Tōhoku quake. The biggest advantage of warning is fire prevention, as gas lines can shut automatically. But I also wouldn't mind a little server interrupt telling my machines to get into a consistent state since they're about to be knocked offline.
If you can determine how to subscribe to the push notifications Google and Apple send for their devices specifically for these events, you could have a daemon monitor for the alert and park your spinning disk drive heads.
Apps already have access to the data [http://quakeapp.com/].
Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt
#30A few seconds warning seems like it might be kind of useless for humans, especially at 3am, but it would be cool to have this feed into automatic systems to automatically put them in a "safer" state before an earthquake hits. It might even be that 10 false positives a day are worth it to catch one real event, if the "safing" operation is relatively non-disruptive.
It's an interesting exercise to spend a day or two trying to be aware of what would be the most likely dangers where you are at the moment if you were caught in a good sizes quake right then.
I think that most will find that there are many times each day where a few seconds warning would make a difference. Some common situations:
• Carrying a heavy item that would hurt you if you dropped it on your foot, or fell down and it landed on you.
• Sitting near a shelf with something heavy on it (surround speaker, for example).
• Many things in the kitchen: carrying hot liquid; hot liquid on the stove; using a knife.
• Using power tools: soldering; drilling; sawing.
• Juggling torches.
Just a couple seconds warning can give you time to put down a heavy object, move from where your speaker will fall on you or prepare to deflect it, get out of the way of potential spills in the kitchen, put down the knife, stop your power tools, and stop juggling.