USGS confirms false 5.9 quake reported in Nevada after NorCal residents receive MyShake alert

NEVADA (KGO) -- Many residents in Northern California got an alert Thursday morning from the MyShake App notifying them a 5.9 earthquake struck in western Nevada.

However, the USGS has confirmed it was a false alarm and there was no earthquake.

In a social media post, USGS ShakeAlert says that the alerts are canceled and they are "currently looking into why the alerts were issued."

The USGS website originally had a map of the quake centered in Dayton, Nevada, which is northeast of Carson City and Lake Tahoe. That notice was then removed from the map, and the website said "the requested event has been deleted."

ABC7 News talked to the owner of Roadrunner Cafe in Dayton.

"We didn't feel anything," said Davin Gothard.

Suzanne Phan: "So, you didn't get any alert on your phone?"
Davin: "Nope. Nope."

Alerts went out from Nevada to San Francisco.

We checked in with Angie Lux, a project scientist for earthquake early warning at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory.

"Obviously, it's disappointing. We work really hard to make sure that people trust our system. We want it to be reliable. We want to make sure we are alerting when there are earthquakes and not alerting when there are not earthquakes," said Lux.

Robert de Groot is a lead Shake Alert operations team member.

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The Shake Alert earthquake early warning system sends alerts to users in California, Oregon, and Washington via its app.

Those warnings provide a few seconds of crucial warning and preparation time, depending on how far you are from the forecast epicenter of a quake.

"The information we really need to explore is what happened, where the earthquake itself was detected at the sensors themselves out in the field. That's where we really need to do the investigation," said de Groot.

The USGS says the rest of the Shake Alert system operated as intended.

Thursday afternoon, Cal OES released this statement in response to the false alarm:

"That national system is operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, not the State of California, but we rely on it every day to help keep our communities safe by providing critical, life-saving information when seconds matter."

The Berkeley Seismological Lab says the Shake Alert early warning system has never before had a false alarm -- until today.

Scientists say since 2019, they've sent more than 170 correct alerts.

MAP: Significant San Francisco Bay Area fault lines and strong earthquakes
Zoom in on the map below and compare where you live to the significant faults and where strong earthquakes have struck in the Bay Area.