CBS 2 Los Angeles reports that seismologists say that their early warning systems did alert them that the Napa Valley earthquake was imminent, but the good news was that the quake struck at 3:20 a.m., when most people were asleep.
“That tends to minimize the impact in terms of injury,” said one expert from Cal Tech.
The last quake of the same relative strength in the Napa Valley area was a 6.4 quake in the 1800s.
The quake prompted many aftershocks, with the biggest being rated at a 3.6 just before 6 a.m.
The expert continued: “The aftershocks should die down after the next few days, but still linger for the next several weeks. The system is in operation throughout the state, actually throughout the entire western U.S. This system did work this morning. The warnings are not being broadcast publicly through the emergency broadcast system, and that’s something that we’re trying to develop.”
The hope is that with more development, the warning system will be able to give California residents a warning of one minute before a quake hits.