AMY BUSHATZ
When North Korea hits “go” on one of its top-secret underground weapons tests, the first person outside that country to know about it isn’t someone monitoring a global web of sensors at the U.S. Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC).
Instead, it’s one of the scientists on shift watching and waiting for a tsunami to appear on monitors in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s innocuous-looking National Tsunami Warning Center, which is nestled next to family homes in this picturesque small town.
This center serves a vital safety role. The ability of these scientists to quickly analyze earthquake data could be the difference between life and death for residents in high-risk tsunami areas.
The center’s high-tech tracking equipment, which can analyze seismic data from around the world within minutes, means the scientists also see other earthshaking events sooner than anyone else, officials here said.
Events such as North Korea’s nuclear bomb tests.
The center isn’t exactly a regular hotbed of activity. Other than the hum of computers and the clacking of a few keyboards, the scientists — a collection of seismologists, engineers and other experts — spend most their days quietly reading data, problem solving on the best ways to measure potential tsunami activity, and waiting for the Earth to do something fascinating but hazardous.
Until, that is, the seismic alarm sounds, telling the center’s on-duty scientists — there’s at least two in the building 24/7 — that there’s been an earthquake. Or an underground bomb test.
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/10/12/surprising-first-people-know-north-koreas-bomb-tests/
