State officials and scientists unveil a statewide early warning system for earthquakes, complete with a mobile app: MyShake. The system could give residents precious moments to prepare in the event of a quake. Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested the system could offer as much as 20 seconds to find a place to hunker down before the shaking starts, slow down trains, or open elevator doors. It’s not perfect, researchers who developed the app say, but it’s developed enough to be beneficial to Californians when serious shaking is expected.
“Twenty seconds, that’s not an insignificant amount of time to make sure we shut down or slow down the BART.” — Gov. Gavin Newsom
