If a Government Shutdown were to Happen it would Greatly Impact the USGS

EUREKA, CA—The government shutdown was delayed six weeks. If a full shutdown happens next month, it would affect the U.S. Geological Survey.

Most of the people who monitor earthquakes aren’t considered essential workers.

“I do expect that if there is a major earthquake that we’re going to get the information but the last time we had a shutdown and there was a significant earthquake, a lot of the information that usually would have been posted right away was not available,” Lori Dengler, Professor of Geology at Cal Poly Humboldt said. “Things like the fault mechanism and the fault slip, and those things are actually useful to know. Same thing goes for NOAA and the tsunami program and the weather. Fortunately, most weather service employees are considered essential employees, but the doors will be locked at Woodley Island and so we’ll still get forecasts. We’ll still get tsunami alerts, but we won’t get anyone who can explain to you what any of that means.”

That’s hoping the monitoring equipment doesn’t break.   

“So there are a few people on the USGS that will still be working, and a lot of it’s automated so, the automated system will continue to work, but not necessarily all of the repair crews,” Dengler said. “Obviously locating earthquakes is dependent upon the seismic equipment functioning and seismic equipment is already, you know, you need to send people out to make sure that the telemetry is working and the internet and all of that is working.”

Professor Dengler said, if you don’t already have it, sign up for the MyShake Alert app. It’s from the University of Berkeley. It can give you alerts seconds before an earthquake starts shaking.