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Abstract:
The effective initial public adoption and proper sustained use of Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems depend, in part, upon effective education, outreach, and communication (EOC) campaigns. The success of such campaigns are themselves dependent upon strategic plans designed around audience needs, interests, codes, and understandings. From this, clear, concise, and easily comprehensible messaging and interactions should be implemented and repeatedly distributed through multiple trusted channels and sources. While much work has been done on public perceptions of earthquake risks, little seems to have been done to explore how the general public understands and describes earthquakes, including their lived experiences with them, especially in terms of earthquake magnitude and intensity. Developing effective EOC strategies and messaging requires accurate knowledge of audiences' understandings of earthquake magnitude and intensity and the linguistic codes they use to describe them. This presentation will share some preliminary results of a study looking at people's linguistic descriptions of their first-hand experiences of earthquakes by conducting qualitative analyses of thousands of public submissions to the USGS's Did You Feel It? survey concerning the 2019 California Ridgecrest earthquakes.
