An early warning system could save thousands of lives when the next major earthquake hits the West Coast. Ghorayshi reported on the work of a group at the University of California at Berkeley that has been developing such a warning system, and she pointed out the wide gap between the United States and Japan in the deployment of such systems. Lee Hotz of The Wall Street Journal said Ghorayshi's piece was "sound on science and sage on the politics of earthquake early warning systems." Ghorayshi "made a great case for why California needs to follow Japan's lead in investing in earthquake prediction systems," said Laura Helmuth, science editor for Slate. The story explained "complicated seismology questions clearly and engagingly," she said. Ghorayshi "found the case of how Japanese deal with earthquakes head-on as a culture quite fascinating," she said, "especially where Californians are more likely to shrug them off as an inevitability."
