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Earthquake Warning System to Be Tested in 3 States

The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Early Warning System director announced today that the preliminary phase of its rollout will begin this year in California, Oregon and Washington.

The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Early Warning System director announced today that the preliminary phase of its rollout will begin this year in California, Oregon and Washington. 

It can give an advanced notice – a precious few seconds. But while the earthquake warning system is good enough to do wide scale warnings, it’s not good enough, yet, to fully implement.

The Earthquake Emergency Warning System, still only half built, uses sophisticated shake sensors and data analyzers to send out alerts for magnitude 4.5 or greater events to minimize false alerts or low magnitude panic. 

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.