SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced that it has
successfully deployed a commercial-grade earthquake early warning (EEW)
system on a bank of four elevators at its downtown San Francisco
headquarters.
The 34-story office building located at 77 Beale St. in the heart of San
Francisco’s Financial District is now the first high-rise building on
the West Coast to have elevators equipped with immediate, automated
recall.
In the event of a strong earthquake, the four elevator cars connected to
the EEW system will receive a warning signal up to one minute before
shaking begins and automatically stop at the closest floor and open the
doors, enabling passengers to safely exit the elevator before shaking
occurs.
Earthquake early warning is intended to identify and characterize an
earthquake a few seconds after it begins, calculate the likely intensity
of ground shaking that will result, and deliver warnings to people and
infrastructure in harm's way via PA system, computer, smartphone, and
eventually, via television and radio. The amount of warning time at a
particular location depends on its distance from the earthquake
epicenter.
“This is a tremendous milestone in PG&E’s effort to incorporate
earthquake early warning into our emergency management and preparedness
efforts and an important, proactive step in protecting employees and
minimizing potential injury to personnel,” said Barry Anderson, vice
president, Electric Distribution, PG&E.
In May, Anderson
was appointed by California Gov. Jerry Brown to the state’s EEW
Advisory Board, which includes the director of the Governor’s Office of
Emergency Services (Cal OES) and other state officials.
Over the past year, PG&E worked closely with Seismic
Warning Systems (SWS) – a privately held earthquake warning
developer and integrator – to install sensors, equipment and
communications capabilities at its headquarters.
Being the first to deploy such a system on elevators in a high-rise
building, PG&E needed to develop brand new protocols, coordinate with
multiple internal teams, and consult with outside vendors. To become
operational, the system needed to pass a safety inspection by the
California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), which
it did in August.
"PG&E is taking major steps forward in its culture of safety and
embodying the state of California’s embrace of public/private
partnerships in earthquake warning by working with Seismic Warning
Systems to deploy both our on-site and regional earthquake warning
system in Northern California. We are excited about applying our 16
years of earthquake warning experience to the protection of PG&E
employees and assets,” said Michael J. Price, chief operating officer
and chief technology officer, Seismic Warning Systems.
The deployment of this system is a pilot project which PG&E hopes to
extend to additional elevators at its headquarters and at other offices
and facilities. PG&E is also working with SWS to deploy earthquake
warning system sensors at both a substation and a service center located
on the San Francisco Peninsula.
In addition to working with SWS, PG&E is actively
piloting other EEW solutions to test which ones will allow both
automated and human actions in the seconds before an earthquake to
protect lives, lessen property damage and ensure rapid service
restoration.
In particular, PG&E is participating in the ShakeAlert project,
an experimental EEW system for the west coast of the United States
developed by the United
States Geological Survey (USGS) along with a coalition of State and
university partners including the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at
the University of California, Berkeley.
Scientists from the USGS recently stated there is a 98 percent chance
for a 6.0 magnitude earthquake or larger to strike the Bay Area sometime
in the next 30 years, underscoring the importance of developing and
fully implementing a comprehensive statewide EEW system as soon as
possible.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San
Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of
the nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.
About Seismic Warning Systems
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Seismic Warning Systems Inc. designs
and manufactures systems and services that provide reliable earthquake
detection coupled with an automated and actionable system response.
Seismic Warning Systems partners with commercial, industrial and
government customers that seek to avert human injury, mitigate
earthquake damage to property and other assets, and ensure business
continuity. For regular updates, follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn,
become a fan at Facebook, or visit www.seismicwarning.com.
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Source: PG&E Corporation