Does $8M for Earthquake Early Warning Define Success?

I've been watching the White House Summit on Earthquake Early Warning today and I have to say I'm frustrated. I'm thinking I could be more productive if I gave up on all this disaster and emergency management stuff and just went and played golf. My contributions to society might just be greater than any difference I'm making by writing about people and events that are doing little to advance disaster resilience here in the United States.  

Today there was a succession of congressmen, very interested in the topic of earthquakes, one just back from Japan, each being congratulated for paying attention to the topic of seismic early warning and what it can do to protect people and property. 

But really — in the 2016 omnibus funding bill there was $8.2M appropriated for advancing a seismic warning system on the West Coast. This is what percentage of a $4 trillion federal budget?

One train wreck following a derailment coming from an earthquake would cost more than $8M in physical damages and medical care for those injured. Heck, the overtime pay for firefighters getting people out of elevators they are stuck in following an earthquake will exceed $8M!

This isn't federal budget decimal dust, it is federal budget navel lint!

Repeated speakers today shared how far we are behind other countries in having a seismic warning system. 

• Following the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that killed 10,000 they implemented a warning system by 1991.
• Following the Japan Kobe earthquake of 1995 they implemented a warning system by 2007.
• Chile has a warning system!

And — we are fiddling around with small pots of money. Asking private-sector partners (some who are helping — to their credit) to help with funding for a system that should be a federal funding priority. It is the definition of being crazy, a total lack of acknowledgment of the risks and a failure of imagination on the part of our local, state and federal elected leaders. And, we emergency managers are complicit in this deception by not complaining about the piddling amount of money being allocated.  

Today's event was the definition of "baby steps" toward early warning and disaster resilience.

I can tell you that the ground is not waiting for us to get our act together before it decides to move in catastrophic ways. It isn't like we could not implement a system because the technology is not there. Take a fraction of the money from BioWatch, (billions of dollars) and put it toward this work that is vitally needed.  

OK, now having said that — let's sit back and wait for the big quake, that when it is over, we will see the release of hundreds of millions of dollars for a federal earthquake and tsunami warning system that won't be built until people have died and lives and organizations have been ruined.  

We are as reactionary as they come!