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Comment by kaffekaka | Hacker News Reader

But if you, when you received a warning, knew that roughly a third of the time nothing would happen, would you still adjust your plans or leave?

And even if you trusted the warning, would you leave immediately? Considering that the warning was for the next week, ie the quake could come next minute or in six days.

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Leave. If you live in such an area it would be a way of life. You probably have a spare toothbrush at someone else's house already. Unless you have a bunker or something that is considered safe.

Used to live near Japan, in a 5-story concrete building. We had so many earthquakes, the things were getting thrown off the shelves multiple times a year. There is nowhere to leave for a week. And there is a very slim chance anything would collapse, because the buildings are specifically built to withstand up to around 9 richter.

Third of the time nothing happening doesn't seem like a huge sacrifice at all.

The sacrifice is loss of income from not working, losing job, or at least using up paid time off. There is also disruption to kids’ schedules and activities, as well as lodging and transportation costs to live somewhere else for a week.

Unless we rethink PTO as being used up on those warnings. A 70% chance of an earthquake next week? Okay kids, we're going to the bahamas for a week!

It comes down to frequency and potential losses with a earthquake.

The less frequent earthquakes are the more valuable it would be.

The more risk to your life or property earthquake would have if unprepared would also increase the value.

So it's low value if there's mild earthquakes every week, but really high value if there's few strong earthquakes a year.

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