I don’t know what it sounds like in California, but in Japan, where I live, it’s unmistakable: a very loud buzz followed by a female voice saying firmly—in Japanese, at least on my phone— “It’s an earthquake,” repeated over and over.
I’ve experienced it maybe a dozen times over the past ten years. (I’ve felt earthquakes much more frequently here than I did in California, where I grew up.)
Two or three times it has woken me up in the middle of the night, and I was able to get up and move away from the dresser that's right next to my futon and could conceivably tip over on me. (I shouldn't be sleeping there, I know.)
Several times I was near other people—on a commuter train, in a meeting, walking along a sidewalk—when multiple phones sounded the alarm at the same time. Once or twice, I’ve been on a train that stopped suddenly with an automated announcement coming over the loudspeaker saying “Emergency stop! Earthquake.” Once I felt fairly strong shaking after the train had stopped, so the advance warning might have prevented a derailment.
Maybe half the time no perceptible shaking has followed the alert, either because I was too far away from the affected area or because it was a false alarm. One such false alarm occurred on July 29, 2020, and the Meteorological Agency issued an apology [1, in Japanese]. There have also been at least a couple of strong earthquakes where the system didn’t go off when it was supposed to, so it’s not yet perfect.
The alerts are startling but also reassuring. It’s much better to have a twenty-second warning than none at all.
A couple of months ago I was walking through a park late at night thinking I was alone. So it was a rather surreal experience to see phones light up everywhere around me with that woman's voice speaking in almost perfect unison.
In this particular case there was a 2-3 second warning. Was one of the more violent ones Tokyo has had recently and I was rather glad to not have been inside.
This[1] is how it sounds in Japan if anyone is interested.
The author of the sound (Kokubo Takashi) interviewed in the past[2] that he designed the sound to make people alerted, but it must not make people feel uneasy or causing panic. The sound must also not resemble any other alert sound as people may ignore it. The result is what we're using in Japan today, repeating three times to ensure it draws enough attention.
Someone needs to tell the North American market to not make everything the same tone. The alerts in California are almost completely ignored now because they use it constantly for Amber Alerts/Silver Alerts.
I have long complained that "amber alerts," "silver alerts," and in some states "blue alerts" have seriously degraded the value and functionality of these alerts through desensitization. The original design goal that lead, through many evolutions, to EAS/WEA/IPAWS/etc, was an alert system that would cause the public to take organized, pre-planned steps within 30 seconds of the issuance of the alert [1]. While we no longer worry about nuclear attack on such a short timeline, earthquake early warning has once again highlighted the requirement for a system that is immediately recognizable as requiring protective action. Overloading EAS with these types of messages, while politically appealing, has effectively eliminated the ability of the system to demand an immediate response. This will, ultimately, endanger lives.
Ultimately, nothing should be issued via EAS that does not require prompt and decisive action. This is not an exotic category: tornadoes, flash flooding, large hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, and civil and industrial emergencies are all reasonably frequent real-world events in which prompt and decisive action by the public saves lives and property. Unfortunately we have completely tangled them in with "a child was abducted, or a senior citizen wandered, or a cop was shot somewhere in the state," a scenario with no generally understood action for the public. That information should be disseminated using means other than the distinctive EAS attention tone which has always been intended to be reserved for those situation in which you must act immediately [2].
This doesn't mean a return to the old situation in which only POTUS was authorized to issue emergency messages, but it should mean that emergency message issuance is limited to scenarios that meet the same general criteria of requiring immediate action, regardless of their originator. The NWS and state governors (really their EOCs) do produce such alerts, but they should receive specific criteria to require.
[1] It had been determined in the 1950s that action within 30 seconds would produce substantial (e.g. 70%) reduction in fatalities in the case of an unanticipated nuclear attack, but that warning greater than 30 seconds was not always feasible. Improved early detection systems such as OTH radar have made this issue somewhat obsolete, although more recent developments such as HGVs and nuclear-armed "sea drones" like Kanyon have potentially brought it back to relevance even just in the case of nuclear war.
[2] Really the attention tone is a leftover technical detail from an earlier implementation, but its use has been specifically protected because it is so well recognized by the public as an indication of a national emergency. Unfortunately that protection is at the whims of legislators which frequently expand it to include whatever is politically appealing, regardless of actual outcomes.
That's why I have them disabled in my phone. I once got Amber Alert in the airplane 35K feet above and flying over Colorado (LAX - DCA). Alerts are useful but over-abused unintentionally. The only I can't disable is the top one, I think it is Presidential Alert?
There have also been at least a couple of strong earthquakes where the system didn’t go off when it was supposed to, so it’s not yet perfect.
Obviously, I don't know the exact details of those incidents, but if the epicentre is too close to you, there will not be time for the alert to occur. The alerts work because the earthquake travels slower than the telecommunications signals. No alert can be triggered until after an earthquake has occurred. Then, however, a warning can be sent to notify people further away from the epicentre before the shaking reaches them.
Yes, the further you are from the epicenter the more time there is for a warning, but it doesn't rely on having a detector right at the center. That's because there are two sets of seismic waves that travel at different speeds. P waves arrive first; S (shear) waves cause most of the damage. Of course, electronic signals travel much faster than either.
In the large earthquake in Tokyo in October, I felt the P wave, then got the alert on one of my phones, then the s-wave hit and I got the alert on my other phone (different provider). Interesting seeing the race, and I wonder how optimized notification systems are.
> ... I was able to get up and move away from the dresser that's right next to my futon and could conceivably tip over on me. (I shouldn't be sleeping there, I know.)
There are restraints you can buy that attach furniture to the walls with a strap. I know its sold to prevent children from attempting to turn their dresser drawers into a set of steps which when climbed tips over on top of them.
Even my cheap IKEA bookcase came with a strap and a mount point for it. I think it would withstand a moderate earthquake, but not necessarily a child applying that level of leverage.
> One such false alarm occurred on July 29, 2020, and the Meteorological Agency issued an apology
That's so important for emergency alert systems: Acknowledgement that false alarms are disruptive and apologizing for the stress that they cause.
After being woken up in the middle of the night for an unjustified alarm I proactively turn off all emergency alarms on my phone. If, in the morning, all the headlines were about an apology, I'd keep the alarm on.
I read this story on reddit, will try and find it . But someone was working in an office in Tokyo with hundreds of mobile phones that were on . Some kind of call centre or something.
They said they’d worked back late and we’re the only person left on the floor when every single mobile did what you describe.
They said “it was truly the sound of the apocalypse” ha
Interesting. As someone who watches the live seismic data in Japan from the US, I would have thought it’d be the nice sounding chime that they play on TV stations. Then again, it’s a phone, so buzzing is definitely a go-to solution for notifying the people in the vicinity.
Ever receive a flash flood warning, severe weather alert (lightning, tornado), or amber alert on your phone? It'd be the same notification. I'm sure there's others too, those are just the ones I've received before.
I have mixed feelings on Amber Alerts. I'm in Texas, and I receive alerts for things that are happening so far away from me, that most states could fit inside the distance apart. Seems like there should be some sort of max distance away for the alerts to be issued.
I've also wondered if useable information has been received from these alerts, or if it's just a bit of psychology being used against the perps when the alert about them goes off on their phone.
The majority of amber alerts are from parents in custody disputes. Mom says dad stole the kids or visa versa. They really should not be putting these cases into the same category as abductions.
There should be a fine for this. I understand that there are situations where a parent does take their kids where it would actually fall under abduction/kidnapping. However, if parents are abusing the alert system for minor custody disputes, then this should be handled with a severe punishment. Almost to the point of losing the custody battle if they're that immature.
The alerts are sent by police, not parents. I was curious and at one point went thru a year's records for NY state amber alerts. There were zero instances of stranger abduction. Most cases are as you say children taken by parent without custodial rights, with a secondary set of teens running away, sometimes with an older romantic partner.
Yeah if you give a button to an employee and tell them “you won’t ever be yelled at for pushing the button, but if you fail to push the button and something happens you will be yelled at” - that button is going to get pushed. A lot.
It would be really nice on Android if I could get the alerts without the obnoxious noise.
Since the noise and the alert are tied together, and I absolutely detest the noise, I have the alert turned off.
It's silly that you can turn off the ring for a phone call and still get the notification, but can't turn off the alert noise without also turning off the alert notification.
Yeah, the original idea was excellent. Great for warnings or child abductions but now even the child abduction stuff is annoying. Some parents battling over the custody of their kids is now a child abduction
It's absolutely crazy that whoever decided to create the warning system in Canada decided to roll "amber alerts" and "presidential alerts" into the same alert. So now I can get woken up in the middle of the night for an alert for a lost child hundreds of kilometers away that I can't do anything about - and, even if I turn off amber alerts, they still come in as a presidential message.
Earthquakes tend to have a bit of a ramp up period (P wave vs S wave), I was in an earthquake once and could figure out initially what was going on, because I was experiencing the first low intensity waves. An alert would avoid this initial confusion.
According to a graphic in the OP article there are different types of mobile alerts depending on the earthquake strength, only the strongest ones triggering an actual Wireless Emergency Alert.
