Early Warning Labs, LLC (EWL) is an Earthquake Early Warning technology developer and integrator founded in Santa Monica, CA in 2013. EWL is partnered with industry leading GIS provider ESRI, Inc. and is collaborating with the US Government and university partners on its earthquake detection system.
Over the next 36 months EWL is investing millions of dollars to complete the final integration and delivery of Earthquake Early Warning to individual consumers, government entities, and commercial users.
EWL’s mission is to improve, expand, and lower the costs of the existing earthquake early warning systems. The objective of an earthquake early warning system is to rapidly detect the initiation of an earthquake, estimate the level of ground shaking intensity to be expected, and issue a warning before significant ground shaking starts. A network of seismic sensors detects the first energy to radiate from an earthquake, the P-wave energy, and the location and the magnitude of the earthquake is rapidly determined. Then, the anticipated ground shaking across the region to be affected is estimated. The system can provide warning before the S-wave arrives, which brings the strong shaking that usually causes most of the damage. Warnings will be distributed to local and state public emergency response officials, critical infrastructure, private businesses, and the public. EEW systems have been successfully implemented in Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, and other nations with varying degrees of sophistication and coverage.
This innovative work to better understand our world’s geography is crucial in efforts to prevent the extreme damages caused by earthquakes around the world, as were realized during the calamity in Kathmandu earlier this year. The American Geographical Society commends Early Warning Labs on their efforts and we hope to see the project be a success in the future!
By Christopher Ewell, AGS on July 2, 2015