Building earthquake early warning one sensor at a time

SEATTLE — Behind a portable classroom at Evergreen Elementary School in Lakebay on the Key Peninsula, Doug Gibbons and David Bowen Tuesday installed a metal box with an important instrument inside.

It's the newest sensor in the earthquake early warning system.

This sensor measures ground shaking.

The rest of the stuff in the box sends the signal to the seismology lab in Seattle, quickly.

"The signal goes back to U-Dub almost at the speed of light," Gibbons said. "An earthquake early warning message can be issued once the shaking starts in about three and a half seconds."

Earthquake early warning detects initial seismic waves, then sends an alert before the shaking starts.

A 4.1 magnitude earthquake early Monday morning on the Olympic Peninsula triggered ShakeAlert, which is still in the test phase.

The quake wasn't big enough to feel, but people in Seattle would have had 14 seconds of warning if the system was giving public notifications.

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​Earlier this month, a KIRO 7 investigation found that although large-scale tests in California are expected by the end of this year, Washington emergency managers say we probably won't get public notifications until late 2020, at the earliest.

"Right now we don't have any way to get the alert out to the public or in a real massive way to a lot of users, we're talking millions of users within seconds," said Maximilian Dixon, earthquake program manager for the state's emergency management division.

While cellphone companies work out the problem of quickly sending those alerts -- an effective warning system depends on installing more sensors.

"They need to be strategically located. We're trying to fill in coverage gaps like here on the Key Peninsula and also add density to the network," Gibbons said.

The U.S. Geological Survey is the primary funder of ShakeAlert.

Last spring, the agency estimated that of the 560 stations needed in the Northwest, 277 are unfunded.

Unlike California, which has spent $25 million of state money on sensors, and Oregon, which has spent about $1 million, Washington has allocated no supplemental money for sensors.

That's why every new station is an important step toward a more functional system.

Doug Gibbons has installed sensors in private homes, in IT closets of fire stations, and even on Mount Rainier.

"The more instruments we have, the better."

Cox Media Group