People living in the United States are less likely to suffer an earthquake than many other countries around the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s not smart to be prepared when one hits. The US Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert service sends out notifications before an earthquake hits, but there is a catch: you must live in California to receive this service because there are over 800 ShakeAlert stations placed throughout the state to detect seismic activity and send out alerts.
Thanks to the MyShake app, thousands of Californians were informed before Tuesday’s magnitude 5.1 earthquake in the Bay Area.
According to representatives from the California Office of Emergency Management and USGS, the app, which was created by the Berkeley Seismology Lab, warned 95,000 smartphones of the earthquake up to 18 seconds before it struck and instructed users to “drop, cover, and hang on.”
According to the app’s statistics page, signups for the app have increased dramatically since Tuesday’s alarm, with over 2 million registered phones.
The MyShake app is available to download by anybody, however only California, Oregon, and Washington have a fully functional system. Regardless of whether your phone is set to “Do Not Disturb,” you should still receive notifications. However, the app will only notify you if an earthquake of magnitude 3.5 or higher is discovered.
Here’s how to use it and download it.
Download the MyShake app from the Google Play store if you have an Android phone or the Apple App Store if you have an iPhone.
Start the app.
If you agree, it will ask your permission to give you notifications and urgent alerts while also tracking your whereabouts. For notifications and alerts, click “Allow.” Even if you choose not to give MyShake permission to monitor your location, you will still get emergency notifications.
Select California, Oregon, or Washington as your state of residence.
You may report earthquakes you encounter, view recent earthquakes, and learn safety precautions inside the app. The bottom menu of the app, which is horizontally positioned on the screen, has alternatives that may be selected to access each of these choices.
When an earthquake is going to occur, your phone will sound an alarm. There will be a warning that says “drop, cover, and hold on,” providing you a brief window of time to defend yourself.
Make sure your iPhone apps don’t remove themselves automatically as a bonus tip.
If you’ve ever realised that an app you needed on your iPhone has disappeared, it’s likely because you have the “Offload Unused Apps” feature selected, which automatically deletes unused apps to free up storage space. You should disable this option on your iPhone initially since you might only require this app when you use it. Here is how to make this setting inactive.
Open Settings.
Select App Store.
Turn off the Offload Unused Apps option.
