The new earthquake early warning system is being rolled out up and down the West Coast. It would provide a heads up, ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes, that an earthquake had started and shaking is coming.
Many local scientists attended the White House Summit on Earthquake Resilience Tuesday to receive support.
As part of the summit, President Obama signed an executive order to have federally owned buildings and construction projects comply with the latest earthquake codes. The White House is also expecting its budget to include more money to finish building the network of earthquake seismic sensors that make up the warning system and provide up to $16 million to operate it annually.
If the system had been in place during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, a homeowner in north Seattle would have known four seconds in advance that shaking was coming. It's hoped a full public rollout will happen in two years, and warnings could be sent over smart phones, the internet to home computers, even activate sirens and other public warning devices.
In the case of a massive magnitude 9 quake off the coast, Seattle and Tacoma could have from one to five minutes of warning depending on the original epicenter of the earthquake, which is expected to rupture a more than 700-mile fault line from off Cape Mendicino, California, to off Canada's Vancouver Island.
This is not earthquake prediction. Scientists cannot say a quake of a certain size will hit next Tuesday, for example.
The early warning detects the faster, more benign "P" wave from the quake to alert that stronger shaking "S" waves will follow.
