NOAA's Tsunami Warning Center Under Fire

Questions are being raised by Sen. Snowe about NOAA's Hawaii (and Alaska) Tsunami Warning Center's information distribution actions after the quake. The concerns, either real or scape-goating, involve the problem of who was contacted after the quake was registered.

NOAA's response, that there was no tsunami information system in place, either to collect undersea data or to process warnings in most of the countries around the Indian Ocean is certainly true. But this answer is problematic, along with the further explanation that they lacked contacts in the Indian Ocean region.

I worry that someone might have played it bureaucratically and scientifically safe by not making any warnings outside of official channels. With a two hour window, why not call electronic media, internationally and throughtout the region? Was this considered too risky? Is it possible this didn't occur to them, or that it was somehow prohibited by an extant policy?

There may be a good explanation. I would like to understand it. As I write this, a much smaller (5.7) earthquake has apparantly hit one of the Nicobar islands, and the Indian government has ordered tsunami evacuations.

THURSDAY UPDATE - The lack of an-place monitoring system in India, plus their not having passed on the information they did receive from NOAA, probably contributed to the latest evacuation order, which as it turned out was unnecessary. More at the NYT. This episode and the resulting panic is a good reason for caution. But what balance is right?

NOAA is a great federal program. And it's hard to think of a more conscientious government operation. I am worried that at a most critical moment it may have been hobbled in it's fundamental mission by a too-conservative information policy.