Many Bay Area residents were alerted by their phones Wednesday morning when a large earthquake struck in far-off Mendocino County, despite the fact that most people in the region didn’t feel the slightest wobble.

When the magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck at 8:10 a.m., the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System sent notifications to well over 1 million people throughout Northern California, said Robert de Groot, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center in Pasadena.

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Kiley Russell writes primarily for Local News Matters on issues related to equity and the environment. A Bay Area native, he has lived most of his life in Oakland. He studied journalism at San Francisco State University, worked for the Associated Press and the former Contra Costa Times, among other outlets. He has covered everything from state legislatures, local governments, federal and state courts, crime, growth and development, political campaigns of various stripes, wildfires and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.