DIVIDE AND CONQUER – IMPROVING SHAKEALERT EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING OUTREACH, EDUCATION, AND TRAINING THROUGH SECTOR SYMPOSIUMS

The ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system is coming to the U.S. West Coast. Emergency managers and potential technical users in the Pacific Northwest were given a survey in 2017, to better understand their needs before and during public roll-out. Based on the results, we developed a strategy for EEW rollout in the Pacific Northwest, which defined a successful EEW system as one where: 1) an earthquake is detected, and an alert is disseminated to all users who are expected to experience e shaking; 2) System users (the public and automatic systems) receive an alert, and take action to protect themselves and/or reduce damage from earthquake shaking; and 3) the protective actions taken result in decreased injury and decreased economic impacts. Achieving this requires cooperation between scientists, emergency managers, and the public and private sectors, to ensure adequate outreach, education, and training are delivered to all potential users. Users must understand the system, its capabilities and limitations, and the proper protective actions following an alert.

A method that has so far been successful for education, training, outreach, and also gaining support and additional pilot users, is holding Sector Symposiums – ShakeAlert EEW workshops focused on educating and learning from members of a specific discipline (e.g., transportation, education, etc.). Several of these events have been held in California, Oregon, and Washington. Symposiums begin with a briefing by experts – scientists, emergency managers, and technical users currently working on EEW – who share details about the system, its capabilities and limitations and the rollout plans. The second portion of these events are workshops, where sector representatives participate in facilitated discussions about potential uses of ShakeAlert EEW within their sector, possible challenges to implementation, ideas for overcoming those challenges, and their support needs from system administrators. This opportunity for two-way sharing helps create new partners and “Champions,” while improving overall trust in the system. This type of collaboration between disciplines is an effective way to share information which could be leveraged more frequently when bringing new technology or ideas to partners in the public and private sectors.