Gov. Davis Makes Decision to Fund Quake Monitoring Map System

An administration official said that Gov. Gray Davis plans to use state money to fund the Trinet system of hundreds of seismic monitoring stations in Southern California, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

The state money will eliminate any jeopardy that the system previously faced due to lack of federal funding. The current U.S. grants that financed the monitoring stations will expire at the end of 2001.

Davis plans to put a total of $6.8 million into the proposed state budget, including $2.9 million to maintain the Southland system, and $3.9 million more for the first year of a five-year program to expand the system statewide, according to the official. Trinet shake maps are currently available in as little as 15 minutes.

As the system expands throughout the state, there will be fewer and fewer areas that will be out of immediate reach by state rescue agencies. Founded in 1997, with help from a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the system provides shake maps showing where there may be severe quake damage. The stations give the location and magnitude of earthquakes within minutes throughout the Southland. The system will have 670 stations up-and-running by the end of the year.