Several months ago, in Southern California, we had a cell phone earthquake alert.
Essentially it was “An earthquake is coming now, seek cover”.
I picked up my phone, read it, gave it a kind of WTH look, and, indeed, an earthquake hit. And it was a notable quake.
I rode out the quake at my desk.
And that’s the thing. Where I’m at, we get hit all the time. Rollers, shakers, slammers. We had a week or so last year where we got hit by a swarm of a dozen of them.
But they’re small. Close 3s. During the swarm, I felt for the folks about 2 miles away. All of them originated beneath them, so they were getting more than I was.
So, it’s hard to take an earthquake warning very seriously. First, I didn’t even know we had warnings. Second, we’re (I’m) used to just riding them out. With that kind of warning, all we can do is duck and cover, assume the worst, hope for the best.
I will say this, next time I get that warning, I’ll heed it. The quake that hit us was interesting enough to justify caution should they send another one, and, one way or another, it’s going to be over soon. So the overall precaution in response to the warning is quite low.
On the other hand, we also get the flash flood warnings. They’re broadcast over a huge area, 95+% of which is, honestly, not susceptible to the flooding.
These are long lasting warnings. With 12 hour durations. The most interesting one is the one for a local river basin. That warning goes off when crossing the river on the freeway.
There are certainly areas susceptible to flash floods. Lots of mountains and canyons. Especially in the foothills in the deserts. Down here in the greater LA, Orange, Inland Empire regions, it’s less of an issue. 100 years of development, dams, and flood control infrastructure actually do the job quite well.
Spamming us with flood alerts just numb us to alerts in general when things might really go bad.