FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – PG&E is among the first energy companies in California and the US to begin implementing earthquake early warning technology as a part of its seismic response efforts.
The ShakeAlert project is testing solutions to see which ones will allow both automated and human actions in the seconds before an earthquake to protect lives, lessen property damage and ensure rapid service restoration.
The systems use seismic sensor networks to measure shaking and calculate the epicenter of the quake, its intensity, and time until shaking arrives at the end-user’s location.
“Using the earthquake early warning technology, we can detect those initial waves which are not the shaking – but there comes an initial wave that comes through – and then based on your location relation to the epicenter of the earthquake, and based the magnitude, we can then issue warnings to our employees and to folks potentially that would be in a situation where they might be working on a live wire or a gas pipeline or something, and be able to help them take actions to move out of harm’s way or take actions to be able to de-energize the line, that sort of thing.” – Paul Doherty, PG&E spokesman.
The power company is working with both private and publicly funded technology developers and integrators, including Early Warning Labs, Seismic Warning Systems, and the ShakeAlert project, which is a coalition that includes the U.S. Geological Survey, the State of California and universities including the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, the University of Washington, and the University of Oregon.
Click below to listen to the story by KMJ’s Liz Kern:
