This is being covered on local San Francisco Bay Area media, but if network engineers aren't paying attention to the local news. Here is an opportunity for tech folks in the Oakland area to participate in the Earthquake Early Warning Test.

TEST INFORMATION
Date: Wednesday, March 27th, 2019
Time: 11:00AM
Message: “TEST of the CA Earthquake Warning System. No action required. THIS IS A TEST.” Location: Downtown Oakland (Lakeside commercial neighborhood) with bleedover into adjacent areas depending on cell tower RF propagation.


Part of this year's test is measuring how quickly earthquake warning alerts are propagated through different emergency alert channels. The future goal is transmitting earthquake alerts in less than 3 seconds. That is unlikely with current systems. Instead the test will help measure current alert system propagation delays.

If you have access to accurate clocks, and a cell phone, and are in the Oakland area on Wednesday.

https://www.caloes.ca.gov/cal-oes-divisions/earthquake-tsunami-volcano-programs/california-earthquake-early-warning-program


Please participate in a citizen science test to see how fast these alerts can be transmitted to cell phones. For this test to be effective, you need to take the following steps:

1) Before the test starts, using either your cell phone or your desktop computer go to www.time.is.

2) Starting a few minutes in advance of the scheduled alert time (11:00AM Pacific), keep a close watch on your cell phone and www.time.is note the exact time--to the nearest second, if you can--at which the alert first arrives on your phone. This alert will have the heading "Emergency Alert", and this message: “TEST of the CA Earthquake Warning System. No action required. THIS IS A TEST.”

3) Please take this survey, armed with the time (to the second) you received the alert. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WEATESTSHAKEALERT


Yeah, I know. Some folks on this list likely have nano-second synchronized clocks and will debate whether the propagation delay is taking into account the correct einstein relativity offset of the earth's surface in the oakland bay area (I just made that techno-babble up).

Just do the reasonable thing, and help out the scientists :-)

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