Caltech, USGS say earthquakes in our local area ‘surprisingly active’
The California Institute of Technology and the U.S. Geological Survey held a news conference Tuesday following the recent shaking in our valley.
The unexpected 4:49 a.m. shaking alarm clock jolted many valley residents awake. The quake was over 8 miles deep, allowing the waves to reach greater distances and spread the shaking all the way to surrounding counties and even down to Mexico. No damage has been reported.
This quake comes after a particularly active few weeks of local temblors, leaving many wondering if these are the warning signs of the big one, and seismologists say when one hits, it’s possible another is not far off.
“With any earthquake the probability of a larger earthquake does increase,” said Robert Graves, geophysicist with USGS, “We estimate there’s a 1-2% chance in the next week of having an event larger than today’s magnitude 4.5.”
That’s why more work is being done to test an earthquake early warning system, ShakeAlert. It’s not ready for public use, but those who are Beta users got to see the results this morning.
“Palm Springs had about a five-second warning. The city of Riverside had about eight seconds warning time, so that means that the warning arrived at that location eight seconds before the shaking waves arrived,” said Graves.
Until the ShakeAlert is ready for wide release, your best bet is to be ready for anything.
“If you live in Southern California, you cannot claim that you did not know earthquakes will occur. This is a good test. Check your emergency supplies. Think about what you can do to get in contact with your family. Most of us will survive the big one in terms of injury, but we need to survive the recovery of the earthquake,” said Graves.
