Next week, USGS and the nation commemorate the 30th anniversary of one of the most destructive earthquake disasters in U.S. history – the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in northern California. The magnitude 6.9 quake struck on October 17 in the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area near Santa Cruz and was responsible for the deaths of 63 people and more than 3,500 injuries.
There is something else to remember on this anniversary – the development and testing of a forerunner of the USGS ShakeAlert® Earthquake Early Warning System.
Wherever people live with earthquakes, there is a desire for an early warning that shaking is imminent. Even as far back as 1868, following a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on the Hayward fault, the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin published an editorial proposing an early warning system. Calls echoing that desire continued throughout the 20th century in countries as far off as Iran, Italy, Japan, and Mexico.
In the United States, the first serious proposal for such a system came from USGS geophysicist Tom Heaton in 1985. Dr. Heaton’s pioneering insight was ahead of its time, but the technology available in 1985 was not adequate for the system he proposed.
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Image via USGS.