Earthquake alert is part of our safety net

Kitsap Sun editorial board | Kitsap

There's a lot of hand wringing going on right now about how the Trump Administration's proposed budget cuts non-discretionary spending across a range of programs and services that are important to Kitsap County residents. It can be staggering to dig into the specifics of a budget that opens its negotiation from such a drastic extreme.

Among the targets is a line item of approximately $8 million to the United States Geological Survey, which has funded the development of a technology called ShakeAlert. This is a project the University of Washington participates on with several universities, which the Sun has written about in our coverage of the Cascadia subduction zone that our community sits upon.

The simple description of ShakeAlert is a system of seismometers along the entire West Coast to measure early seismic waves that are created when an earthquake begins. That data is transmitted instantaneously to computers that would determine the approximate size and location of an earthquake. The system would then send alerts to mobile phones through an app, which, based on your location, would give you anywhere from seconds to minutes of warning that a big one is about to hit.

Why does that matter? Imagine yourself as a surgeon, holding a scalpel above a sedated patient. Or a shipyard employee lifting several tons with a crane. Or a kindergarten teacher with a room full of children that need to get to safety. How would your life change if you have an extra 60 seconds before the ground starts shaking violently?

Hypothetical situations are easy grist when talking about the need for federal money, and it's true that no one knows the hour a big one may arrive. But ShakeAlert is the kind of ambitious, and potentially life-saving, technology that is worth an investment by our government and public institutions. Shredding that part of our safety net definitely makes us less safe.

We've been consistent in waving the flag for earthquake preparedness in our homes and neighborhoods, with the acknowledgement that it'll be a great day if we never need to use it.

The ShakeAlert monitoring system fits part of that logic — we hope our phones never buzz to tell us a major quake or tsunami will arrive in seconds. But we would all feel a whole lot better if we knew that they could. Congress should restore the funding to complete the project and maintain annually operations.