An additional $5 million in federal funding will upgrade seismic stations and help develop a public interface for earthquake alerts seconds to minutes before the ground shakes.

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Earthquake early warning is one step closer to reality in the Pacific Northwest with a $5 million funding boost from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The money will be used to improve the existing ShakeAlert prototype system, upgrade seismic stations along the West Coast and expand the small group of companies and agencies that are now testing the system.

The announcement comes at a time when public awareness of the quake risk in the Northwest is high because of a recent New Yorker magazine article about “the Really Big One” — a megaquake and tsunami on the offshore fault called the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

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But the funding was in the pipeline long before the article was published, said John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington.

Early warning works by detecting the initial seismic waves from an earthquake, then beaming an alert before the strongest shaking begins. For quakes that originate nearby, the warning time may be only a few seconds. But in the case of a Cascadia megaquake, Seattle, Portland and other inland cities could get several minutes’ warning before the shaking starts.

That may not sound like much, but it’s enough time for people to take cover and for businesses, industries and hospitals to shut down vital processes. Japan’s early warning network brings bullet trains to a halt, automatically alerts schools and sends warnings to the public via cellphone.

Prototype systems are being tested along the U.S. West Coast. The network in California quickly detected the magnitude 6 South Napa earthquake last fall and proved a nine-second warning for San Francisco.

In Washington, several businesses signed up earlier this year as test users.

Among other things, the new funding will hire an expert to better integrate the Northwest and California prototypes and improve data processing. It will also allow GPS measurements of ground motion to be factored in, which will improve initial magnitude estimates.

While the existing prototypes work fairly well, they are still prone to false alarms, Vidale said. A deep earthquake in Japan a few months ago fooled the network into thinking it detected a magnitude 5 quake locally.

A fully functional system will cost about $16.5 million a year — a level of funding that will support a staff of about 50 people in Washington, Oregon and California, and allow for regular replacement and upgrades of seismic stations.

“The new money is kind of a small part of the whole system, but it is a step in the right direction,” Vidale said.