Senator Alex Padilla is introducing a bill that -if it becomes law- would establish the framework for a system giving Californians 30-to-60 seconds of warning before a sizeable quake hits, "$80 million sounds like a lot of money but relative to the billions of dollars in damage and loss that accompanies every big earthquake, I think it's a small investment to be made."

Scientists at the United States Geological Survey, University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology have already developed a test system.  Many Asian countries already have installed one.