5 ms·

If the system were relatively reliable, 10 seconds is actually a lot of time. During the day, it's enough time for many people to take cover. During the night,

If the system were relatively reliable, 10 seconds is actually a lot of time. During the day, it's enough time for many people to take cover. During the night, it's enough time to at least get people up and semi-oriented. The other thing to note is that earthquakes are much shorter than most people think, usually about a minute long. 10 seconds is quite a bit of time compared to that.

argonaut 12y ago
I think the point is that 10 seconds of warning really translates to 0-5 seconds of warning given the time it takes to send out the warning (text, radio, emergency broadcast). Then add in time to wake and get oriented.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  Which might mean getting to a safe place 20 seconds into the earthquake instead of 30 seconds into it. I wouldn't downplay this.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    You can get under a table in 5 seconds. That's a change between life and death by having your fridge or large shelf fall on you.
    - easytiger 12y ago
      If i lived in an area of tectonic activity I'm pretty sure i'd anchor my fridge to the wall
      - ghshephard 12y ago
        Unlikely. The Bay Area is an area of "tectonic activity" (as evidenced by Loma Prieta in 1989, and now the the 6.0 from yesterday) - but I"m willing to wager fewer than 1 in a thousand people anchor their fridge to the wall. Hot water heaters and book cases - Yes. But not fridges. They rarely tip over in earthquakes.
        rdl 12y ago
        I'm not really afraid of what happens if my fridge tips over, either. I spend very little time in front of the fridge, and never when anything but fully alert. If the room started shaking, I could probably step a little to the left or to the right and be fine. I'm probably more concerned about all the glasses on high shelves, or the knives, etc., in terms of floor hazards after the quake. The thing which terrifies me is that I'm in a 1971-construction building with a soft story, in a city with a defective police department. My car is parked in that soft story. Assuming the entire building doesn't collapse and kill me, there's nothing above my-standing-height except one projector, which even from projector-height, would be unlikely to kill me. But I'd probably have fallen to my death and been crushed by huge volumes of unreinforced masonry before that. (Please, please, if there's going to be an earthquake while I'm in the Bay Area, let it happened while I'm in the office, or even better, in a datacenter. The new office is being fully retrofitted right now, so it should be pretty good.)
freditup 12y ago
But there's no way to reliably get information to all people within ten seconds. Even if a text message alert was sent out as soon as the system was triggered, that time, plus the time for even the most phone-ready people to pull out their phone and do the necessary steps to read a message leads to basically no warning at all.
- w00kie 12y ago
  In Japan, all phones (even the iPhone) are setup to emit a loud alarm sound when an earthquake warning is sent, whether your phone is on manner mode or not. The alarm sound is very distinctive and the same for all phones as well as all TV channels.
  - Scoundreller 12y ago
    This is what I could find: The sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPDvAYF8Q-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPDvAYF8Q-I Wikipedia article in bad need of proof-reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japan) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japan...
  - ssclafani 12y ago
    People in Tokyo had a 60 second warning for the 2011 quake. Here's a good translation of the TV alerts from that day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KfBwkMw_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KfBwkMw_M Phone alert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAAIcqI_0Jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAAIcqI_0Jk Warning countdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FMpNBfna8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FMpNBfna8
    - chvid 12y ago
      The first and the last video are quite impressive. It is really an amazing warning system saving real lives. Thanks for posting.
    - kalleboo 12y ago
      Here's a matrix of the 6 big TV channels. Top left is the national broadcast (of the public broadcaster, NHK), the others are local commercial Tokyo broadcasts. The earthquake was initially not estimated to be big enough to affect Tokyo so Tokyo stations didn't automatically broadcast the initial alert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOrAwvJLKxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOrAwvJLKxo
peter303 12y ago
The 20 seconds of shaking during the Loma Prieta Quake certainly felt like minutes to me!

argonaut 12y ago

I think the point is that 10 seconds of warning really translates to 0-5 seconds of warning given the time it takes to send out the warning (text, radio, emergency broadcast). Then add in time to wake and get oriented.

Scoundreller 12y ago
Which might mean getting to a safe place 20 seconds into the earthquake instead of 30 seconds into it. I wouldn't downplay this.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  You can get under a table in 5 seconds. That's a change between life and death by having your fridge or large shelf fall on you.
  - easytiger 12y ago
    If i lived in an area of tectonic activity I'm pretty sure i'd anchor my fridge to the wall
    - ghshephard 12y ago
      Unlikely. The Bay Area is an area of "tectonic activity" (as evidenced by Loma Prieta in 1989, and now the the 6.0 from yesterday) - but I"m willing to wager fewer than 1 in a thousand people anchor their fridge to the wall. Hot water heaters and book cases - Yes. But not fridges. They rarely tip over in earthquakes.
      - rdl 12y ago
        I'm not really afraid of what happens if my fridge tips over, either. I spend very little time in front of the fridge, and never when anything but fully alert. If the room started shaking, I could probably step a little to the left or to the right and be fine. I'm probably more concerned about all the glasses on high shelves, or the knives, etc., in terms of floor hazards after the quake. The thing which terrifies me is that I'm in a 1971-construction building with a soft story, in a city with a defective police department. My car is parked in that soft story. Assuming the entire building doesn't collapse and kill me, there's nothing above my-standing-height except one projector, which even from projector-height, would be unlikely to kill me. But I'd probably have fallen to my death and been crushed by huge volumes of unreinforced masonry before that. (Please, please, if there's going to be an earthquake while I'm in the Bay Area, let it happened while I'm in the office, or even better, in a datacenter. The new office is being fully retrofitted right now, so it should be pretty good.)

freditup 12y ago

But there's no way to reliably get information to all people within ten seconds. Even if a text message alert was sent out as soon as the system was triggered, that time, plus the time for even the most phone-ready people to pull out their phone and do the necessary steps to read a message leads to basically no warning at all.

w00kie 12y ago
In Japan, all phones (even the iPhone) are setup to emit a loud alarm sound when an earthquake warning is sent, whether your phone is on manner mode or not. The alarm sound is very distinctive and the same for all phones as well as all TV channels.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  This is what I could find: The sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPDvAYF8Q-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPDvAYF8Q-I Wikipedia article in bad need of proof-reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japan) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japan...
- ssclafani 12y ago
  People in Tokyo had a 60 second warning for the 2011 quake. Here's a good translation of the TV alerts from that day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KfBwkMw_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KfBwkMw_M Phone alert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAAIcqI_0Jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAAIcqI_0Jk Warning countdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FMpNBfna8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FMpNBfna8
  - chvid 12y ago
    The first and the last video are quite impressive. It is really an amazing warning system saving real lives. Thanks for posting.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    Here's a matrix of the 6 big TV channels. Top left is the national broadcast (of the public broadcaster, NHK), the others are local commercial Tokyo broadcasts. The earthquake was initially not estimated to be big enough to affect Tokyo so Tokyo stations didn't automatically broadcast the initial alert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOrAwvJLKxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOrAwvJLKxo

peter303 12y ago

The 20 seconds of shaking during the Loma Prieta Quake certainly felt like minutes to me!