April 1, 1946, 8 earthquakes. After this disaster, the US Tsunami program was born.
Nearly 80 years later, this life-saving network of nation-wide observation stations and sea level rise. In addition to NOAA, the stations depend on Federal funding that the Trump administration has not turned away this year. As a result, the nine earthquake stations operated by the Alaska Earthquake Center will close in mid-November, Alaska News reports.
These stations include critical data on the structure and magnitude of earthquakes and one of the most active seismic zones in the world: the Alaskan-Aleutian Aleatuction Zone. This 2,485-mile-long (4,000 km) boundary where the pacific plate goes under the North American plate can produce powerful earthquakes and tsunamis like the 1946 disaster.
Experts warn that blocking channels that monitor this illegal area could hinder the nation’s ability to detect tsunamis and issue evacuation orders before it’s too late.
“The Alaska Earthquake Center regrets the termination of our funding from Noaa,” Communications Manager Elisabeth Nadin told Gizmoto in an email. “We regret the planned ability of the National Tsunami Warning Center to issue and update tsunami warnings due to this loss of funds.”
Download the NOAA Tsunami Warning System
Amid the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce Federal spending on Science Research, NOAA has been hit hard. Mass layoffs and proposed funding cuts threaten to edge — or dismantle — several of the agency’s research arms, including the Office of Atmospheric and Oceanic Research, NOAA’s science centers, and NOAA Fisheries’ Science Centers.
The Tsunami warning system was no different, but the system was already struggling with reduced funding and staffing. The two Tsunami warning centers – located in Hawaii, Hawaii, and Palmer, Alaska – were very low before this year’s plan. Of the 20 full-time Alaskan positions at the station, only 11 are filled, NBC News reports.
In the years 2024 and 2025, Noaa also reduced funding to the National Government’s Tsunami Mitigation Fund, which supports efforts to reduce the risk of Tsunami.
A dangerous gap in the bite
The nine monitoring stations used for decommissioning this month were previously supported by a NOAA grant of $300,000 per year. Kim Doster, a spokeswoman for Noaa, told Gizmodo in an email that Noaa will stop funding the grant in fiscal year 2024.
The Alaska Earthquake Center requested a new grant in 2028 but was denied, according to an email between director Michael West and NOAA staff obtained by NBC News. The University of Alaska Fairbanks raised funding for the program for another year in hopes that the federal money would eventually come through, but it never did, according to NBC.
Those nine stations are located in the Western Aleutian Islands and the Pacific Ocean, where they are often the only stations for hundreds of kilometers in parts of the Alaskan-Aleutian zone, according to Nadin. This region produces “almost all North American Tsunamis that cross the Pacific Ocean, causing damage in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and California,” he said.
“The loss of funds also means that the entire Alaskan earthquake network will no longer be sent directly to the National Tsunami Earning Center, which has until now received that and to build large Alaskan decisions from large Alaskan states,” added Nadin.
Doster said the Alaska Earthquake Center “is one of many partners supporting the National Weather Service’s Tsunami activities, and the NWS continues to use multiple methods to ensure data collection for Alaska.”
However, experts say that the loss of these nine monitoring stations – and the general dismantling of the country’s early warning system – creates a dangerous gap in combat.
“People should be concerned about anything that mocks our earthquakes and tsunamis,” West told an Alaska news outlet. “Anything that gives some of the really hard work that’s been put in over the years to try and keep us safe in light of these events.”
