Bay Area resident weighs in on effectiveness of ShakeAlert during Delta earthquake
ANTIOCH – Wednesday's earthquake that struck the Delta was felt in an neighborhood in Antioch, and a resident weighs in on the effectiveness of an alert system intended to warn about impending shaking.
Just before 9:30 a.m., an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 hit about 2.5 miles southwest of the community of Isleton, triggering an emergency alert notification from USGS shake system.
It was felt by many neighbors in Antioch, like Melanie Sammis.
"My kitchen light started shaking, and then the counter started shaking and I kind of braced myself a little bit," said Sammis.
The mother of two told KPIX that her phone went off seconds later.
"My phone alerted--- the national alert--- which was a surprise because we never got alerts for earthquakes before," Sammis said.
She said thankfully there wasn't any damage inside or outside of her home, but feels like the alert made her panic.
"Like I said I have mix feelings about it," Sammis said. "I feel like it brought on extra panic then what was really necessary. Because of that, I was kind of waiting, expecting something bigger."
Her four-year-old son Harry also felt the quake, but it didn't rattle him too much.
"What we want to do is deliver alerts to people that need them the most," Robert de Groot, lead of the ShakeAlert operations team at USGS. "So what we do is deliver alerts to people, or alerts are delivered to people rather, that can feel shaking about the equivalent to a truck."
De Groot told KPIX that it's expected that people who were not in close proximity to the earthquake still receive the alert.
"Yes, the system performed as expected," said de Groot.
Sammis says as a Californian native she is bracing for whenever the next earthquake may hit.
While an alert was sent on Wednesday, USGS wants to remind everyone that on Thursday there will be alert system test at 10:19 a.m., as part of the Great ShakeOut earthquake drill.