The earthquake early warning app launched by the city of Los Angeles two years ago will stop issuing alerts of impending shakes after the end of the year, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday.
The ShakeAlertLA app — launched in 2018 to alert residents when earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or greater are expected to occur in L.A. County — will be replaced by the new statewide smartphone app, MyShake, which is powered by the same data source and software as the city’s app.
“ShakeAlertLA showed how we can harness technology to provide critical warning before an earthquake hits,” Garcetti said in a statement. “The next big one is not a matter of if, but when, and we can all do our part to stay prepared, resilient, and a few seconds ahead of the game by downloading the MyShake app now.”
More than a million people have downloaded the statewide app since its launch in October 2019, according to the mayor’s office.
The state system works the same way as ShakeAlertLA — the first earthquake early warning app in the country — and detects earthquakes through hundreds of ground-motion sensors across California, officials said. If an earthquake with a significant magnitude is detected, the state app will send an alert several seconds before shaking begins.
Jim Reilly, director of U.S. Geological Survey, said the city’s ShakeAlertLA app “paved the way for widespread public alerting throughout the State of California.”
“What we learned from our important pilot partnership with the city of L.A. has benefited people throughout the West Coast as we expand ShakeAlert,” Reilly said.
The city-owned ShakeAlertLA app was reworked last year after many Angelenos were upset that they didn’t receive any alerts when the two of strongest earthquakes in almost two decades hit Southern California in July 2019.
Officials at the time were quick to explain to app users that the shaking from the Ridgecrest earthquakes 125 miles north of Los Angeles wasn’t strong enough to trigger an alert in L.A. County. Despite their concerns that too many many warnings could lead to complacency, officials decided to lower the threshold for sending out alerts.
The statewide app builds on those lessons learned from the city’s ShakeAlertLA app, according to Garcetti’s office. ShakeAlertLA was meant to “serve as a bridge” to a statewide earthquake early warning system, the mayor said, and city officials worked with other cities and counties in developing earthquake early-warning programs.
Now that a statewide system is in place, the ShakeAlertLA app will no longer send earthquake warnings after Dec. 31, 2020.
The MyShake app is available for download through the Apple store, or on Google Play.