Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 108 posts

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#31

Post by mturmon »

freditup wrote: post #8
waiwai933 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the system were relatively reliable, 10 seconds is actually a lot of time. During the day, it's enough time for many people to take cover. During the night, it's enough time to at least get people up and semi-oriented. The other thing to note is that earthquakes are much shorter than most people think, usually about a minute long. 10 seconds is quite a bit of time compared to that.

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 tornado country, there are loud outdoor sirens that go off when a tornado is sighted. The sirens are audible to anyone indoors or out, and they are tested at a given time once a month.

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#32

Post by dredmorbius »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #18
w00kie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the US, amber alerts hijack phones and emit an alarm. Had it happen in the middle of a college lecture.. although some phones received it 5 minutes later than others. I'm guessing this functionality could be used for earthquakes.

I've got to say that my experience with Amber Alerts is strongly negative.

For a while they were triggering various alerts (including EBS interruptions on radio and TV), with a frequency that lead me to strongly discount such warnings.

Emergencies should be reserved for circumstances in which the recipient of a message can and should take immediate action. An alert is just that: an advisory. Run these was an item in normal newscasts, or in advisory systems (including if you absolutely must, highway signage). But not distracting people.

The fact that, at least in my recollection, a huge number of Amber Alerts appear to involve immediate family / partner situations (boyfriend/girlfriend, other parent, husband/wife, modulo estrangement). Most seem to resolve reasonably well. And I'm not sure that a full-on aggressive response benefits the situation. Again, that's a recollection and personal perception. But overall, I'm underimpressed by the system.

This seems to have improved somewhat in more recent years.

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#34

Post by bonestamp2 »

rdl wrote: post #2

A 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.

Excellent point. It could, for example, switch off gas lines at various checkpoints. I wonder how that might that affect appliances? For example, if a hot water heater is heating and the flame goes out, but then the gas comes back on is the heater smart enough to re-ignite the gas (or shut it off)?

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#35

Post by chvid »

ssclafani wrote: post #16
w00kie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People in Tokyo had a 60 second warning for the 2011 quake. Here's a good translation of the TV alerts from that day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KfBwkMw_M Phone alert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAAIcqI_0Jk Warning countdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FMpNBfna8

The first and the last video are quite impressive. It is really an amazing warning system saving real lives. Thanks for posting.

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#36

Post by idlewords »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
idlewords wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/ ].

Spinning disk drive heads? Okay, GRANDPA!

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#37

Post by rodgerd »

rdl wrote: post #2

A 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.

> A few seconds warning seems like it might be kind of useless for humans

Ten seconds is plenty for me to drop under my work desk, or at least be well on the way. Similarly my daughter's school class. That can make a big difference to survivial rates.

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#38

Post by ghshephard »

Back in 1999/2000 I had a friend in Castro Valley call me in the morning to ask me if I was feeling the earthquake - I said nope, and then 5 seconds later - it hit me in Sunnyvale.

That's another way of earthquake advance warning - taking advantage of the latency between the epicenter and the surrounding area.

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#39

Post by zevets »

tzs wrote: post #30
rdl wrote: post #2

A 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…

I attended a talk by one of the developers of this system, and since earthquake warnings are so short (tens of seconds), it's unlikely that traditional alert mechanisms can be delivered to the general public. As such, the primary consumers of the device will be places like nuclear power plants and major industrial operators who are willing to install special alarms.

The other example he gave was giving doctors performing surgery time to step away from the patient, so that they dont turn things into a real life game of surgeon simulator, an example I personally find to be extremely horrifying and nightmare inducing.

Re: Earthquake early-warning system gave 10-second alert before Napa quake felt

#40

Post by dap »

dredmorbius wrote: post #32
thatswrong0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, amber alerts hijack phones and emit an alarm. Had it happen in the middle of a college lecture.. although some phones received it 5 minutes later than others. I'm guessing this functionality could be used for earthquakes.

I've got to say that my experience with Amber Alerts is strongly negative. For a while they were triggering various alerts (including EBS interruptions on radio and TV), with a frequency that lead me to strongly discount such warnings. Emergencies should be reserved for circumstances in which the recipient of a message can and should take immediate action. An alert is just that: an advisory. Run these was an item in…

And yet, at least once, the alert on the phone specifically (rather than a newscast or highway signage) appears to have saved at least one life[0]. Of course, we don't know what would have happened, and it did wake up the whole state, too. But I think the argument in favor is that the probability of success for these searches decreases quickly with time, so there is substantial value in getting word out quickly.

[0] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/30/4275356/amber-al...

Post reply on HN