As I wrote in this week’s Travel Website of the Week post, I was at lunch in Manhattan Beach when last week’s 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of southern California. I quickly whipped out my phone to see if I had an earthquake app, and when I saw that I didn’t, I searched for one. I quickly found QuakeFeed, which is a free iOS-only app with a 4.7 rating (out of 5) and almost 10,000 reviews. I downloaded it in seconds.
Sure enough, at the top of the app’s earthquake list was a 5.3-magnitude quake off California’s Channel Islands. I was able to share that info with the diners around me before the local news could report on the quake (one of the many TVs on in the restaurant was showing the local news). It was a relief knowing that the earthquake we’d felt wasn’t more powerful and that we could continue on with our lunch.
What I like about QuakeFeed is that it’s quick and easy to use. It provides alerts for earthquakes near you, which is important especially if you’re near the water and there’s a tsunami risk. Among the app’s other features are push notifications for all 6.0+ quakes and detailed reports on all listed earthquakes, including the magnitude, time, latitude/longitude, distance, and depth of each. The app is ad-supported, but the ads aren’t obtrusive at all. If you want to remove them, a premium subscription is just $0.99 per year.
Sorry, my previous message vanished into ether. I like to know of any website or agents specializing in consolidating business class travel? Why is that the travel gurus don’t want to share?