Jen Olson, who lives in Arcata about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the epicenter, said she was awoken by shaking and her phone going off at the same time. Because of how the system works, those closest to the center of the earthquake may not have received an alert until they felt shaking, de Groot said. Some people received the alert with 10 seconds' notice. That process, from seismometer detection to an alert being sent, is all automated, said Robert de Groot, a scientist with the ShakeAlert operations team.

That information can then be processed to determine the earthquake's location and magnitude. But the new technology, which operates in California, Oregon and Washington, is not without its challenges.īefore alerts get sent to people’s phones, multiple seismometers have to detect movement below Earth’s surface. It's one of a handful of earthquake warning systems created in different parts of the world over the past few decades, including Japan and Mexico. ShakeAlert was developed by university researchers and is operated by the U.S. “It's really a groundbreaking, first-in-the-nation tool that hopefully saves lives,” said Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. It was the biggest one the ShakeAlert early warning system has alerted for, since launching publicly in California three years ago. The quake was centered near the small town of Ferndale, about 210 miles (345 kilometers) northwest of San Francisco. You could see everything moving and shaking.” “I could see breakers and wires in the distance flashing like lightning might look like. “They were all wobbling, flashing on and off,” Eller said.

He was more focused on what was going on outside as street lamps began to sway. Jimmy Eller, who was sitting in his parked Chevy Malibu while working as a security guard, said he was already in the throes of the violent quake when he noticed his phone had lit up with the warning. (AP) - As sensors picked up the first signs of a strong earthquake jolting the Northern California coast, an alert was blasted to 3 million smartphone users telling them to “drop, cover, hold on.” It was hailed as the biggest test yet of the warning system since its public launch.īut the people most rattled by the magnitude 6.4 earthquake early Tuesday said the alert didn't give them enough time to take cover as the temblor shook homes off foundations, knocked out power and water to thousands, and injured more than a dozen people.

California earth quake alarm