Earlier this year I blogged on the White House Summit on Earthquake Early Warning, see Does $8M for Earthquake Early Warning Define Success? More on the funding issue at the end of this blog posting.
What I recognized during the discussions was that the current efforts underway by USGS, Washington State Department of Natural Resources and others in the Northwest was the detection and categorization of earthquakes so that a warning message could be sent to USGS. This work is being called, the Earthquake Early Warning System. A misnomer for sure. The "Aha" I had is that no one is working on the warning part! Yikes!
Detection of a hazard is a critical element in warning. It is the first leg of a three-legged stool. The second leg is issuing a warning and the final leg is the protective actions that are taken by people who receive the warning.
So, it is great to have the science guys working on the detection part, but someone concurrently needs to be putting together the procedures and communications systems for people and organizations to receive the data and be able to take proactive steps to protect people and property. In the case of earthquake warning, where optimally we are maybe talking about perhaps four minutes and more likely a warning time measured in seconds, machine to machine communications will be needed. This might stop trains; have elevators go to the next floor and open their doors; stop chemical processes, etc
My sense was coming out of this meeting is that no one in the Pacific Northwest is working in coordination with others across state and international borders on this very important part of a "Warning System." It was mentioned that that the science guys think that that is the role of USGS to coordinate. I would beg to add, the system has to be designed in a very coordinated fashion with state and local jurisdictions and the private sector at the table.
Then there is the issue of funding. Read my prior blog post linked above first. To put our $8M in perspective, Japan is spending $1B on their seismic warning system and China is spending $300 million. It was briefed that they hope that next year the funding might go up to $10 to 12 million, but at a minimum they need $16 million annually to have the system maintained and monitored.
We are truly an exceptional nation that can do for $8 million what others are paying many hundreds of millions more to protect their nation's people and infrastructure.
Again don't worry...we'll get that higher level of funding right after tens of thousands of people die in a tsunami on our coast or are killed and injured in the interior of the NW. Note, one modern locomotive costs upwards of $6M. We'd just need to protect one or two of those to regain our investment in a warning system.
