Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Dec. 23 announced that the city of Los Angeles will retire the ShakeAlertLA earthquake early warning mobile app on Dec. 31.

The app was a pilot project that laid the foundation for an earthquake early warning alert system in California. Angelenos are now encouraged to download MyShake, a new statewide cell phone app from Earthquake Early Warning California that is powered by ShakeAlert and builds on lessons learned from the city’s two-year ShakeAlert pilot to deliver earthquake early warning alerts to people across L.A. County.

Since its launch in 2018, the ShakeAlertLA app has been downloaded 920,000 times and issued 100,000 early warning alerts. As the first earthquake early warning app in the country, ShakeAlertLA created new software techniques, threshold alerting levels, personal privacy protections and communication methods, and demonstrated that telecommunications networks could handle a large number of mass notifications. MyShake broadens the coverage to the entire state.

The city of L.A. made a $6 million strategic investment to add more sensors to the ShakeAlert network, establishing Southern California as the first region in the United States with the density of stations required to support the early warning system. ShakeAlert uses these sensors and others that have since been installed across the state to create the warnings that MyShake uses to distribute alerts to its users.

In addition, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services recently announced a partnership with Google that includes Earthquake Warning California technology as a feature included in millions of new Android phones and via software updates in existing Android phones used in California.

Like ShakeAlertLA, the state system uses ground-motion sensors to detect earthquakes that have already started and estimates their size, location and impact. When it detects a significant magnitude, the system issues a ShakeAlert Message, providing a warning before shaking begins.

Residents who want to receive earthquake early warning notifications should download the MyShake app, which is available on the Apple store, or on Google Play.