Page 3 - aruba-today-20190706

A3
U.S. NEWS Saturday 6 July 2019

County. The trigger thresh-
old for LA's app required
a magnitude 5 or greater
and an estimate of level 4
on the separate Modified
Mercali Intensity scale, the
level at which there is po-
tentially damaging shaking.
Although Thursday's quake
was well above magnitude
5, the expected shaking for
the Los Angeles area was
level 3, de Groot said.
A revision of the magnitude
threshold down to 4.5 was
already underway, but
the shaking intensity level
would remain at 4. The ra-
tionale is to avoid numer-
ous ShakeAlerts for small
earthquakes that do not
affect people.
"If people get saturated
with these messages, it's
going to make people not
care as much," he said.
Construction of a network
of seismic-monitoring sta-
tions for the West Coast is
just over half complete, with
most coverage in Southern
California, San Francisco
Bay Area and the Seattle-
Tacoma area. Eventually,
the system will send out
alerts over the same system
used for Amber Alerts to
CALIFORNIA The building's cinderblock not report on Friday. cation. defined areas that are ex-
Continued from Front walls also had some cracks, The earthquake knocked "Our goal is to alert peo- pected to be affected by
The quake did not appear said Charissa Wagner, li- over a boulder that sat atop ple who might experi- a quake, de Groot said.
to have caused major dam- brary branch supervisor. one of the rock spires at the ence potentially damag- California is partnering with
age to roads and bridges Wagner was at her home Trona Pinnacles outside of ing shaking, not just feel the federal government to
in the area, but it did open in the small city of 29,000 Ridgecrest, a collection of the shaking," said Robert build the statewide earth-
three cracks across a short people when a small fore- towering rock formations de Groot, a spokesman quake warning system, with
stretch of State Route 178 shock hit, followed by the that has been featured in for the U.S. Geological Sur- the goal of turning it on by
near the tiny town of Trona, large one, putting her and commercials and films, said vey's ShakeAlert system, June 2021. The state has
said California Department her 11-year-old daughter Martha Maciel, a Bureau of which is being developed already spent at least $25
of Transportation District on edge. Land Management spokes- for California, Oregon and million building it, including
Nine spokeswoman Chris- "The little one was like, 'Oh woman in California.Mean- Washington. The West installing hundreds of seis-
tine Knadler. what just happened.' The while, the nation's second- Coast ShakeAlert system mic stations throughout the
Those cracks were tempo- big one came later and largest city revealed plans has provided non-public state. This year, Democratic
rarily sealed, but engineers that was scarier," she said. to lower slightly the thresh- earthquake notifications Gov. Gavin Newsom said
were investigating whether The nearby Naval Air old for public alerts from its on a daily basis to many the state needed $16.3
the two-lane highway was Weapons Station China earthquake early warning test users, including emer- million to finish the project,
damaged beneath the Lake said in a statement app. But officials said the gency agencies, industries, which included money for
cracks, Knadler said. Bridg- late Thursday that no inju- change was in the works transportation systems and stations to monitor seismic
es in the area were also be- ries were reported and so before the quake, which schools. activity, plus nearly $7 mil-
ing checked. far all buildings had been gave scientists at the Cali- Late last year, the city of lion for "outreach and edu-
The Ridgecrest library was found to be intact, but fornia Institute of Technol- Los Angeles released a mo- cation." The state Legisla-
closed as volunteers and assessments continued ogy's seismology lab 48 bile app intended to pro- ture approved the funding
staff picked up hundreds of across its vast acreage. Its seconds of warning but did vide ShakeAlert warnings last month, and Newsom
books that fell off shelves. workforce was ordered to not trigger a public notifi- for users within Los Angeles signed it into law.q