Building upon the success of California’s first-in-the-nation earthquake alert system, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced, in partnership with Google, that the forthcoming update to the company’s Android operating system will incorporate California’s earthquake early warning technology into all Android phones.
The system will use the same data feed to receive and distribute alerts as the state’s Earthquake Early Warning System, which was announced by the governor and Office of Emergency Services last fall.
“It’s not every day that Silicon Valley looks to state government for state-of-the-art innovation, but that’s exactly what is happening today,” said Gov. Newsom. “This announcement means that California’s world-class Earthquake Early Warning System will be a standard function on every Android phone – giving millions precious seconds to drop, cover and hold on when the big one hits.”
Last October, on the 30th anniversary of the deadly Loma Prieta earthquake, Gov. Newsom announced the launch of the nation’s first statewide Earthquake Early Warning System, which marries a new smartphone application dubbed “MyShake” with traditional alert and warning delivery methods such as Wireless Emergency Alerts, or WEA.
“Google is building on what we have done with MyShake,” said Richard Allen, director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory and professor of earth and planetary science, who led the development of MyShake.
MyShake provides Californians with early warning of ground shaking through the ShakeAlert system, which was rolled out last year by the governor’s Office of Emergency Services in conjunction with the U.S. Geological Survey, UC Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology.
But the app also collects shaking data from cellphones and feeds it to UC Berkeley for analysis and research. Currently, MyShake has been downloaded by more than one million users around the world.
While the state’s application has been downloaded more than a million times since being launched, the new Google technology will automatically be included in millions of Android phones used in California, without the need to download a separate app.
Earthquake early warnings can come seconds to minutes before the ground begins to shake, giving MyShake users — and now Android users — time to duck, cover and hold on.
Warnings delivered through the system are based on a computerized program called ShakeAlert, operated by the Governor's Office of Emergency Services and the U.S. Geological Survey that analyzes data from seismic networks in California, calculates preliminary magnitudes, and then estimates which areas will feel shaking.
The ShakeAlert system more broadly gives the state’s businesses, utilities, first responders and others time to secure equipment, pause activities or shut off equipment that could be damaged or incapacitated in a quake — or that could cause injuries.
Allen and UC Berkeley researcher Qingkai Kong consulted with Google over the past year to help the company develop and implement the Android Earthquake Alerts System.
“It's a great project that allowed academic researchers to participate and help Google build the system,” Kong said. “It’s goal is to make an earthquake early warning system available globally that can benefit a lot of people and reduce a lot of casualties in the future. That is always the ultimate goal, to serve society and reduce earthquake hazards.”
Android’s built-in system works similarly to MyShake: Accelerometers in every phone detect shaking and send the data to Google, which uses massive processing to determine the pattern and estimate the spread of shaking.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Marc Stogaitis, a principal software engineer with Android at Google, noted, “We’re essentially racing the speed of light (which is roughly the speed at which signals from a phone travel) against the speed of an earthquake. And lucky for us, the speed of light is much faster!”
According to Kong, Android will only source ground-shaking data from phones that are plugged in and charging and have not moved for a fixed period of time, in order to weed out shaking due to normal movement or to being carried in a pocket or bag.
Allen is hopeful that what Google learns from its crowdsourced earthquake detection network will be applicable to the MyShake experiment, even if outsiders cannot access the data because of privacy concerns.
“Google has great resources, but they are behind a wall,” he said. “I hope we can continue our partnership, so that we can continue to make advances, some inside Google, from which we can learn and apply these lessons outside Google to improve early warning and also better understand earthquake processes.”
Earthquake-prone countries like Mexico and Japan have long had earthquake early warning systems, with alerts typically delivered through cell phones or public address systems. However, California is the first state in the nation to offer earthquake early warning.
Gov. Newsom and the Legislature made significant investments to fund disaster planning and preparedness – including earthquake early warning – in the 2019 Budget Act.
Last year’s enacted budget included $16.3 million one-time general fund to finish the build-out of the system, including finishing seismic stations installation, adding GPS stations to the network, improving telemetry and launching an education campaign.
The governor’s budget this year includes an additional allocation of $17.3 million, supported by a one-time loan of the same amount from the School Land Bank Fund, for full operation and maintenance of the system.
To learn more about earthquake preparedness and download the earthquake early warning application, visit www.earthquake.ca.gov .