Was on the 6th floor of a tower. Shaking lasted almost 2 minutes. There was no damage as far as I could tell (Medellín) but they still evacuated everyone to inspect the building. City is in a bit of chaos, people are fine but unsettled, and the comms lines are clogged with people presumably calling their families.

Was a bit tense to see my phone alerts going off over and over, continually increasing the estimate of the earthquake strength, followed by the shaking getting worse.

For people who don't know, those phone alerts give you literally like 5 seconds of heads up. By the time I finished reading the first message, the shaking had already started. And I got the message while I was holding my phone and using it.

▲

xenadu02 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That's unavoidable. We now have shake alerts in CA but if the quake happens on the Hayward fault across the bay San Francisco isn't going to get much warning no matter what anyone does. By best estimates we may get 15s of warning.

▲

dudus an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The heads up is enough to read the message but not enough to decide if you need to act on it or not. Before you can process it the shaking starts.

▲

loloquwowndueo an hour ago | parent [-]

You always need to act on it. Get an earthquake alert? Run outside. You can go back if it was a false alert.

In Mexico City the seismic alert gives like a minute (sensors are on the coast off Guerrero 350km away). Communities closer to the usual epicenter get almost no warning.

▲

obmelvin 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

Before one can action one needs time to read and process whether the alert is for earthquake, tsunami, child abduction, etc

	▲	lukan 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Those things could be solved with better UI (pictures, colors, ..) to see on one glance what is going on.

▲

moscoe an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The phone alerts sound quite dystopian and unsettling. As if the earth shaking and feeling of imminent doom wasn’t chaotic enough, now you have yet another element of annoyance and distress added to the mix as a cherry on top. Just enough of a distraction in a life/death situation to tilt the scales in a negative direction.

	▲	haykuro an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Knowing this, if you get the alert, get to safety immediately. That alone can help save people. 5 seconds is still time purchased for those who use it wisely.
	▲	AngryData 14 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It could help people react better too by confirming what they are feeling is an earthquake and not a train or plane or your neighbors. It could also wake someone seconds before so they are more aware when it happens and not awakening in primal panic mid quake. It isn't a huge help, but broadcasting to everyone in range of certain towers shouldn't be dystopian.