I didn't know about the New Yorker piece coming out, but the DZTV show covers more of the earthquake risks from all the seismic faults in the Puget Sound and West Coast region. I think Bill Steele from the University of Washington Seismology Lab does a great job of describing the risks and giving a hint on what a seismic warning system might do once we have one in place.
As I note in the show, we'll have all the funding we need for this warning system right after the next big earthquake--that just seems to be how the political system works. We can't bring ourselves to fund disaster mitigation until we have experienced a calamity.