Last week the USGS, in partnership with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, conducted a test of the earthquake early warning system in downtown Oakland. A wireless emergency alert was sent to approximately 40,000 phones in a 60 acre area with a message informing the recipients that it was a test, along with the link to a survey. The survey contained questions such as how quickly the alert was received, what kind of phone they had, and which phone carrier they used. Out of the 40,000 to receive the alert, 907 completed the survey. In a somewhat recent report (2016) it was calculated that an earthquake early waring system message would take approximately 30 seconds to be transmitted, but most of the alerts last week were received in under four seconds. This significant decrease in time can be attributed to the fact that most phone carriers have upgraded to 4G LTE, something that could have a huge impact on EEWs going forward. As to be expected the test run did not go perfectly, but it did bring California a big step closer to officially implementing the use of an earthquake early warning system.
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