Hi All. As of right now the only person in the US who can issue an earthquake alert is the head of the USGS. As Pat has told my so many times if they were to issue a quake warning as a quake forecast giving a percentage to the possibility of it occurring the people might be able to except it as they do a weather forecast.
Think about it now. If I were to give a forecast for an 8.5Ml quake in the next 72 hours for the Bay Area with an assurance of 75% what would your reaction be? Lets take the same quake now, but in the past I have made 5 forecast, but only 3 of them came close to the forecast. What would your reaction be then? I suspect the reactions would be mixed. There would be those who would get out of the area anyway they could. Then there will be those who would say he was wrong on two of the quakes. He could be wrong this time. There are other possibilities, but those would be the two most common reactions. What if the forecast was off by 24, 48, or 72 hours?
The problem is not with the forecast, but with the people themselves. People by nature will do the least they think they can get away with and still survive. Then there will always be those who will take you to task because you were wrong and you won’t have to be wrong by very much. It will be the last group that will give you problems. Everytime you turn around they will be taking you to court for causing them to close their business for a couple of days there by loosing money. I could find myself spending a lot of my budget defending a forecast that I made in good faith. It wouldn’t take very long before I started becoming a little gun shy. I would start thinking that maybe I could be wrong.
There are 3 ways I could be wrong. Magnitude, time and location. It won’t matter which one. A miss is a miss.
Before anyone starts issuing quake forecasts the people have to be educated. Take Care…Don in creepy town.