Last week marked a milestone in earthquake preparedness in Los Angeles, as a new earthquake-alert app was unveiled for the city on both iOS and Android. ShakeAlertLA, as written by The Guardian, “uses mobile app technology to warn Los Angeles county residents when the US Geological Survey’s early warning sensor network indicates an earthquake of 5.0 magnitude or larger is about to shake their location.”
If you live in Los Angeles as I do, this is a great development. ShakeAlertLA is as The Guardian notes “the US’s first publicly available earthquake early warning app, a development seismologists hope will move cities across the west coast to invest in wide-scale alert technology.” The alerts are reported to be near-instantaneous, which is a big improvement from earlier early-warning systems (including the Presidential Alert, which The Guardian reports in certain cases arrived after a 15-second delay).
If you live in Los Angeles County, every step toward earthquake preparedness is an important one.
Related: How to Prepare for and What to Do in an Earthquake
