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Company pitches system for earthquake warning devices in homes

SEATTLE — A campaign on Kickstarter is looking to raise $250,000 for a startup company that wants to put earthquake warning devices in people's homes.

Zizmos is pitching a system where $159 devices have sensors that detect ground shaking and sends that information over Wi-Fi.

If enough devices confirm an earthquake, the system sends a warning, as short as a few seconds, or as long as a minute, to the devices and to a smartphone app.

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​The idea of a private company trying to create an earthquake early warning system is new.

Seismologists at universities are already working on an earthquake early warning system for the West Coast, mostly funded by the feds.

It's been tested for a couple of years, with the warnings so far going only to companies or agencies able to take specific action, like turn off critical equipment, just before the ground shakes.

A limited public rollout of the warnings, possibly to schools in Washington, could come next year.

Japan has a system that warns the public, which is what's planned here once the network is built out and fully funded.

"The public solutions that we see, I'm not sure we're going to see them move quickly enough," said Jenna Andersen of Zizmos.

Paul Bodin, interim director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, hadn't heard of the Zizmos effort but looked over their website at KIRO 7's request.

"It's not B.S., it's a really good idea," Bodin said. "I would say the devil is in the implementation details as far as how well it would work as an earthquake early warning system in the real world."

"I'm encouraged by it," Bodin said. "I think it's really a good move and I hope should it be successful we would be able to interact with their data and their alerts."

The Shake Alert earthquake early warning system under development for the Pacific Northwest needs $38 million to build, and $16 million each year to operate.

This last year, it received $10 million in funding.

So far, it has 214 sensors out of the 560 that are planned.