Bay Area: Help test Earthquake Early Warning System

Mon Mar 25 18:38:07 UTC 2019

This is being covered on local San Francisco Bay Area media, but if 
network engineers aren't paying attention to the local news.  Here is an 
opportunity for tech folks in the Oakland area to participate in the 
Earthquake Early Warning Test.

TEST INFORMATION
Date: Wednesday, March 27th, 2019
Time: 11:00AM
Message: “TEST of the CA Earthquake Warning System. No action required. 
THIS IS A TEST.”
Location: Downtown Oakland (Lakeside commercial neighborhood) with 
bleedover into adjacent areas depending on cell tower RF propagation.

Part of this year's test is measuring how quickly earthquake warning 
alerts are propagated through different emergency alert channels. The 
future goal is transmitting earthquake alerts in less than 3 seconds. 
That is unlikely with current systems. Instead the test will help measure 
current alert system propagation delays.

If you have access to accurate clocks, and a cell phone, and are in the 
Oakland area on Wednesday.

https://www.caloes.ca.gov/cal-oes-divisions/earthquake-tsunami-volcano-programs/california-earthquake-early-warning-program

Please participate in a citizen science test to see how fast these alerts 
can be transmitted to cell phones. For this test to be effective, you need 
to take the following steps:

1) Before the test starts, using either your cell phone or your desktop 
computer go to www.time.is.

2) Starting a few minutes in advance of the scheduled alert time (11:00AM 
Pacific), keep a close watch on your cell phone and www.time.is note the 
exact time--to the nearest second, if you can--at which the alert first 
arrives on your phone. This alert will have the heading "Emergency Alert", 
and this message: “TEST of the CA Earthquake Warning System. No action 
required. THIS IS A TEST.”

3) Please take this survey, armed with the time (to the second) you 
received the alert. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WEATESTSHAKEALERT

Yeah, I know. Some folks on this list likely have nano-second 
synchronized clocks and will debate whether the propagation delay is 
taking into account the correct einstein relativity offset of the earth's 
surface in the oakland bay area (I just made that techno-babble up).

Just do the reasonable thing, and help out the scientists :-)