I was once in my old Tokyo apartment on the 12th floor. I use an early earthquake warning app. It buzzed, telling me a 9.0 occurred in Tokyo bay and I have approximately 3 seconds before the very extreme shaking starts. I just sat down and thought "welp I'm dead".
It turned out to be a false alarm, triggered by something like a monitoring station being struck by lightning. I still have the screenshot of what the app looked like when it told me.
Yikes, that reminds me of the false ’we are all going to be bombed soon, this is not a test’ warning the people in Hawaii got… there should be penalties for false alarms like this.
In many cases there is some opportunity to validate information before it goes out. In others ... not so much.
Even a missile-launch alarm would typically have some opportunity to be assessed based on alert values (e.g., increasing or decreasing hostilities), and perhaps multiple sensor systems (boost-phase IR tracks plus radar signatures, known planned non-military launches, etc.).
In the case of earthquakes, their very unpredictability, the brief period of time avialable in which to make an alert (often only a few seconds, in cases a few minutes) means that manual cross-validation is all but impossible. Still, checks across multiple seismic detectors, preferably isolated from one another to the maximum extent possible, would be one potential check, though you'd still need to have multiple sensors relatively close together, as the time of propagation of seismic waves is both what provides the early alert and causes the damage. (Relative speeds of P (primary) and S (secondary) waves helps --- the p waves tend to cause less damage, but provide an earlier alert, the s waves arrive more slowly but do most of the damage.
At the surface, speed differential is about 3 km/s, meaning there's roughly 1 second of arrival differential for each 3km the observer is from the epicentre. (Subsurface waves travel faster.) Each 3km of separation of seismic stations costs 1 second of advanced warning time, plus whatever system logic and response times exist.
But given that major earthquakes can occur suddenly and without warning or pre-shocks, you really do pretty much have to be ready for anything at any time. And alerting systems need to take this into account. One option might be to have the logic on the phone itself --- it would trigger an alert, but only if some number of independent alarms were detected. One would be unlikely to trigger a false alarm, but two or three near-simultaneous alerts would indicate a major quake.
Penalising false alarms is probably the wrong approach. An engineering philosophy, of determining paths to either false positives or false negatives (each of which have high impact), and eliminating those.
> In the case of earthquakes, their very unpredictability, the brief period of time avialable in which to make an alert (often only a few seconds, in cases a few minutes) means that manual cross-validation is all but impossible.
For the earthquake alarm there is absolutely no manual intervention. These are automatic alarms exploiting the fact that the speed of light in air is faster than the speed of sound in rock. Earthquakes move approximately 1km/s, so if you are 3km away from the epicenter, you get a maximum of 3 seconds warning. Throw a human in the loop and there's no way they'd respond fast enough.
Often these false alarm incidents occur due to issues with the "last mile" of the system in the US, which might be substantially alleviated if there was a federal effort to get automation in place. In a nuclear strike, for example, NORAD would issue the alarm ("attack warning") via FEMA NAWAS and EAS after several documented and proceduralised validation steps.
The problem is that after FEMA NAWAS delivers the alert (audibly) to state and local EOCs, the next step is a ???. In those areas that do have some type of state or locally operated warning system, it's usually just some staff member pushing a button... and the button pushing is where mistakes can and do get made. In theory IPAWS and CAP will introduce automation at this step, but there's a lot of issues that have made CAP implementation slow, mainly the budgetary limitations of local governments and the fact that the major IPAWS/CAP software vendors expect very high prices.
Obviously in the case of earthquake warnings the options for manual validation are very limited due to the time constraints... but in general false-positive incidents have come from fat fingering, not misidentification by technical systems. There are good opportunities to put safeguards in place for automated systems to reduce false positives. For example (although I believe this is partly manual), as I understand it the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center will not issue a full warning until multiple data buoys have indicated a tsunami wave. That doesn't guarantee that it will be of damaging proportions once it reaches our coasts due to the vagaries of ocean modeling (i.e. in the case of the major Japanese earthquake in which a tsunami did occur but was quite small by the time it reached Hawaii, so the warnings felt a bit silly), but it does ensure that it's not an outright false positive.
My point is that more broadly false alarms a failures to alarm must be individually reviewed and cause for failure identified. Assuming that all more most failures are last-mile will work ... until it doesn't. Reviewing and demonstrating that the failure was or was not "last-mile" is what's required.
False signal, improper sensor detection, bad comms (generating or inhibiting signal), bad processing, confusing training or testing events for actual, having an actual alert during a test or drill, and errors in broadcasting alerts to the general public and/or the response to those alerts, might all be components to assess. "Last mile" concerns that last stage.
Since it's one that's often outside the core of an alerting system, and may involve many independent entities (people and/or organisations), it is likely to malfunction. Streamlining procedures and drilling frequently will help identify any such issues and iron them out.
Note that though tsunamis move quickly (> 800 kph / 500 mph in open ocean), the fact that they are often travelling immense distances (100s or 1,000s of miles or km) means that there are almost always many minutes, and quite often many hours for alerts to be sent and responded to. Earthquakes afford seconds to minutes, the timeframes are nearly two orders of magnitude less.
It's not clear who should be blamed for the Hawaii event, except for general government incompetence. It was a planned drill, but the exact time of the drill was purposefully not communicated to the team which handles the alert, to see how they respond. The manager of that team read out the alert text and concluded with: "This is not a drill. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."
The guy whose responsibility to push out the alert had to make a split-second decision. He knew there was a drill happening sometime that day, but his boss said (three times!) that this was not the drill. Better safe than sorry: he pushes the button. I can't really fault him.
Arguably the boss-man should face the repercussions for saying it wasn't a drill when it was, but then that's also kinda the point of the drill--to see how the team would handle a "live" situation. Maybe their interface should have been mocked or the actual alert disabled right before the drill, unbeknownst to them? So it is the drill planners that are responsible?
It's really hard to nail down an individual at fault here, rather than general bureaucratic incompetence.
I have a friend who was stationed in Hawaii during that alarm. He is fairly high up in naval ranking.
We met through an extreme sport hobby in which there are personal speed records to set, and setting those past a certain point are quite dangerous to ones body/life. He and I were both past said point back then.
He was living alone at the time and was woken up by the alert. Through his mind went “either this is a false alarm, or I am completely fucking dead and there’s nothing I can do about it”
Did absolutely nothing except put on his gear & went out and set a new speed record far into the “one fuckup and you’re severely injured or dead category”
I don't know, but my guess would be "free soloing". Basically, climbing up a rock face with no safety equipment. Enthusiasts keep track of speed records for popular climbs. Records are often proven with personal gopro footage, eye witness, etc.
I wonder what 'personal' means in his context though. A lot of the big speed runs, el cap, that face in squamish, are pretty established and not a super personal experience, like say picking your favorite one pitch and doing it.
But I am shocked at how many climbers I know who free solo more than 40 feet off the deck...
Close. Custom built electric skateboards. If I say much more I’ll doxx myself (pretty much already have on this account, oh well, drgaf)
At the time I believe he hit 47mph on flat land with completely smooth pavement. As a community we’ve now hit 54mph clocked on an actual speed radar uphill, slightly above 54mph uphill on GPS (but we don’t brag about GPS readings - while they’ve often been spot on, we’ll always say +/-2mph for them), 67 mph on flat land…
Uphill was on custom poured rubber tires. 67mph flat land was on store available urethane wheels. Keep in mind that’s all electric with no energy from an initial downhill start.
We’ve skated with three of the four downhill record holders of 90mph+… they’re fucking insane in general, & the first time we put one on a custom eboard he hit 44mph flat land & stable with ease (steez)
On the note of danger… we’ve had somebody die from a 14mph flat land crash… yet my friend completely walked away from a 47mph crash wearing only a helmet and tumbling 360* four times… crashes over 40-45 mph in general get pretty fucking gnarly, I’ve seen a few people become seriously disabled or have to completely leave the sport from one, & all of the top dudes of the community wear full leather & more now that they’re pushing past 50mph.
It’s definitely fun stuff. There are some speeds you just shouldn’t be going on a plank of wood. As for me, I’ve clocked 48mph flat land on gps, 45 on radar speed trap. I got into the low 40’s roughly three months in to the hobby, but going past that is not particularly something I’m focused on at this point in my life. Over 45 mph on anything but perfectly smooth road (aka not often) gets to be genuinely scary & induces hardcore tunnel vision. Uphill & flat land is so much different than downhill. A speed wobble @ 38mph steep uphill may have genuinely been the scariest experience in my life, & I’ve had a gun in my face.
If I had to warrant a guess I'm gonna say it's wingsuit flying. I can imagine his friend living at the top of a mountain putting on his squirrel suit to get one last glimpse of Hawaii before shit hits the fan.
The problem is that if the frequency of false alarm is high enough, people ignore the real ones. There is also a problem where the alarm causes harm or causes people to unintentionally become harmed.
In Poland, it was common to use alarm sirens on the occasion of national holidays, even the less important ones. I was so used to meaningless alarm signals that hearing one was making me wonder what anniversary it was, instead of thinking about the potential dangers.
I'm not sure if it was a nationwide problem – voivodes (provincial govenors) could arbitrarily decide on the use of such a signal to commemorate important events. Maybe it changed since then.
I have extended family members who are employees of Hawaii's State Government. The stories they tell... Let me just say that the sheer incompetence and horrible systems design people claim are responsible for that day are entirely reasonable.
The heart of the problem is that government jobs are extremely lucrative for the people of Hawaii because they pay well and because it is extraordinarily difficult to get fired from one. While direct nepotism isn't common, everyone is basically part of this giant extended family. Knowing the right person can land you one of these jobs-for-life even if you're barely qualified for it. There is also a culture of not rocking the boat. Trying to get freeloaders fired subjects you to ostracism. So what ends up happening is a few people end up doing the majority of the work. While this isn't unique to Hawaii, those people who are actually productive end up following their own version of 'the process' and the result is that people are rarely sure if what they are told to do is really what they should be doing.
I would like to submit this as supporting evidence: "A password for the Hawaii emergency agency was hiding in a public photo, written on a post-it note"
I seen too many times when something is made by someone who understands what the system does but never thinks what a rank beginner who is suddenly facing the same display going to think.
It is hard to remember what it is like for someone new to a system.
I got goosebumps reading your post and seeing the screenshot. I used to live in a seismic active region and experienced a few 6.0 and understand that a 9.0 is an end of the world event.
Most you weren't alive then but Alaska had a 9.2 earthquake in 1964. I well remember the news accounts. Luckily not that many people lived in Alaska at the time. I cannot imagine if a quake of that magnitude hit modern day San Francisco.
"9.0 and greater. At or near total destruction – severe damage or collapse to all buildings. Heavy damage and shaking extends to distant locations. Permanent changes in ground topography. One per 10 to 50 years."
It turned out to be a false alarm, triggered by something like a monitoring station being struck by lightning. I still have the screenshot of what the app looked like when it told me.
Edit: found the screenshot:
https://ibb.co/Lk4w5B4