Officials, community say defunding tsunami detection system penny wise and pound foolish

KAILUA-KONA — A wave is coming, and it’s only a matter of time.

The last two tsunami killing events in Hawaii flanked what Kevin Richards called a “prime zone” in the Aleutian Island chain situated a little more than 2,000 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands. Richards, the state’s natural hazards director, said this zone is hundreds of miles long and hasn’t shifted for between 700-800 years.

When it does, the ensuing earthquake has the potential to create a tsunami as devastating as Japan’s Tohoku event in 2011, which killed tens of thousands of people and served as the catalyst for the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi plant.

“It would hit us directly and it would hit us much harder than we would think,” said Richards, who has studied the possibilities with PhDs and engineers who serve on the Hawaii State Earthquake and Tsunami Advisory Committee. “We found we really are at risk.”

A tsunami detection system comprised of dozens of sea floor sensors across the globe significantly mitigates that risk, as well as the risk connected to most earthquake-generated tsunamis originating anywhere outside of Hawaii.

But that system, completed in 2008, is now itself in peril.

The Trump administration’s proposed budget for next fiscal year would slash almost all of the $12 million in annual funding supplied to support the detection system. It would also cut $6 million in federal grants awarded to states to help pay for preparedness drills, as well as the composition of flood maps and evacuation strategies.

Due to Hawaii’s central location in the Pacific Ocean, it is essentially besieged on all sides by tsunami threats — most of which would be difficult to gauge in any meaningful way without the detection system, Richards said.

But with the detection system informing state-coordinated email and textual alert efforts, Hawaii could absorb even a massive tsunami originating in the Aleutian Islands without the loss of human life.

Richards explained such an event would probably reach the state’s shores within three to four hours and may require evacuation efforts three times more extensive than the average tsunami threat.

“The (system alerts us) within three minutes if we have a wave heading our way,” Richards said of the sensors, which measure waves as they pass by in deep waters. “Within 10 minutes, they can tell you where it’s going to impact and how far, how much. Just think what we can do in three hours. We can evacuate an entire coast.”

If the detection system is defunded, then its staffing and the monitoring the staff does would decrease significantly. Sensors and the buoys to which they’re connected, which communicate with satellites to disperse relevant information on the size, direction and timing of tsunami threats, would soon fall into disrepair.

A report by the Los Angeles Times this week noted a timeline of two years before lack of maintenance would render the system useless.

“Long before two years it’ll start having an affect on what we know, when we know and what we can do with the time given us,” Richards said.

He added if the system were to fall out of commission, the only option for monitoring tsunami threats would be a reversion to tidal gauges — a system used in the 1960s during Hawaii’s last tsunami-related killing event.

Richards described tidal gauges as inaccurate, saying they can’t determine how big a wave is, where it’s heading, or when, just that a wave exists. Such a system puts decision makers in a difficult place — evacuate and risk wasting financial resources, or don’t evacuate and risk lives.

Hawaii County initiated an evacuation in 2010 based on a tsunami threat identified by the detection system that didn’t hit the island. Evacuation efforts cost the county around $275,000, mostly in overtime pay for county workers.

The example showed the detection system as it existed wasn’t perfect. But the following year, the system proved its value.

Hawaii suffered zero casualties after the Tohoku event sent waves slamming into Big Island shores, causing extensive damage and resulting in the condemnation of Kailua Pier.

In its report, the L.A. Times referenced a written assertion by the Trump administration that the choice to defund the tsunami detection system is part of a move to streamline efficiency at a federal level in an effort to prioritize national security.

Residents and tourists in Kailua-Kona said Friday that prioritizing national security is exactly what the detection system achieves.

Dennis Larson, who was visiting from California, said he was unaware of the detection system but assumed “in this day and age” that one would be in place, adding he felt safe because of that.

Jay Lovell, an aquarium fisherman on the Big Island for more than three decades, actually experienced a small tsunami a few years back while aboard his boat. He described it as “a current that just didn’t stop.”

He said advanced notification is crucial for the fishing industry, as boats anchored in Kailua Bay would be dragged out to sea and boats on the water at the time of a hit would be vulnerable to sinking.

“It would be a shame if they cut the funding,” Lovell said. “I don’t see the logic in that whatsoever.”

Some local response on digital media to the L.A. Times article, which ran in Thursday’s edition of WHT, was supportive of the administration’s efforts to defund the detection system.

Supporters of the move characterized it as fiscally responsible, saying maintenance of the system should fall to states like Hawaii, Alaska and California. Richards disagreed, saying that 29 U.S. states and all territories benefit from tsunami detection.

“I don’t think that’s a good stance to take,” Richards said. “We’re not an isolated group taking more than our share. And it’s not a lot of money.”

He added that new technology is being developed to make the tsunami detection system more reliable and cost effective. One strategy involves planting numerous sensors in transpacific cables laid on the ocean floor. Some logistical issues need to be resolved, but it’s only a matter of time before the tech gets there.

Time, however, is a luxury the system may no longer have at its disposal.

“Until we can replace the buoys, we have to rely on this system,” Richards said. “Now, they’re going to take it away just when we need it the most.”