[ExI] brown alerts: new earthquake alert system

[spike at rainier66.com]

Hey cool, the earthquake alert system works.

 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/09/14/shakealerts-big-test-in-santa-rosa-ea
rthquake/

 

Back over 30 yrs ago when we had that 89 quake along the Loma Prieta, I got
to thinking there aughta be a way to give proles at least a few seconds
advance warning, which could really help save lives.  Set up a network of
seismometers with some kind of communication system figure out immediately
where the epicenter is, send out something like an amber alert, since the
signal to the satellite travels at the speed of light but the earthquake
shock wave travels at the speed of sound in rock, which is about 4.5 km/sec.

 

So. you wouldn't get much warning, but maybe a little.  I was about 37 km
from the Loma Prieta epicenter in 89, so about 8 seconds warming minus the
latency to relay the signal, so maybe 5 seconds?  That would give me time to
slam the filing cabinet (which fell over when the drawers rattled out) then
get my ass underneath a desk.

 

Tuesday when I was climbing in the Sierras I saw this in the distance and
wondered if some goof had carried all this junk this far up the slope, so I
climbed down and back up (which was damn hard to get to) and discovered it
was a seismograph (my apologies USGS, my blasted curiosity caused an
artificial earthquake (but not much of one (I don't weigh much))) along with
a solar panel and a satellite dish.

 



 

So the USGS is apparently doing exactly what I had envisioned: set up a
network of these seismos, give the proles a few seconds to repent of their
sins, perhaps scream or grab the urn with grandma's ashes, that sorta thing.


 

We already have amber alerts for missing endangered children and silver
alerts for missing endangered geezers.  They could call the earthquake
system brown alerts, for . em. well, yellow was already taken and . 

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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