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Predicting the Big One: California Working on Advanced Quake Warning System

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As parts of Southern California remain under an earthquake advisory until Tuesday, Governor Jerry Brown approved a bill on Thursday to expedite the development of an early-warning system to detect the first shock waves and give the state more time to prepare.

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Senate Bill 438 aims to have a business plan and funding in place by 2018, and opens up state funding for the research and development of “ShakeAlert,” a detection system that would have the ability to automatically stop trains, close bridges, change traffic signals and alert residents through mass text messages and radio broadcast.

The US Geological Survey estimates the cost of installing a ShakeAlert system on the west coast of the country will be around $40 million, and some $16 million a year will be required to operate it, Courthouse News reports.

"We've seen the devastation earthquakes have caused in California," Brown said in a statement. "This keeps us on track to build a statewide warning system that can potentially save lives."

On Saturday, the Governor's Office of Emergency Services put the state on heightened alert of the possibility of a major earthquake following a series of small tremors along the San Andreas fault.

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The San Andreas typically experiences a massive quake about once every 300 years, but the southernmost end hasn't ruptured significantly since 1690.

"There is significant stress stored on the southern end," Morgan Page, a geophysicist with the USGS, told Fox 11.

Residents in Ventura, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles, Kern and Imperial counties have been advised that the chance of a large earthquake happening between now and Tuesday is about one percent higher than normal.

"The scientists rated that there was an increased probability of up to 1 percent, so a slight increase," Ventura County Office of Emergency Services spokesman Kevin McGowan said in a statement, adding, "it is a great reminder to us that we live in earthquake country and that earthquakes […] strike suddenly, violently and with no warning, so everyone's best bet is to be prepared."

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