Congress to Weigh Tsunami Warning System

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Congress will consider a $30 million network of buoys, wave gauges and seismic sensors to warn of tsunamis globally, a plan that would build on U.S. and international efforts to avert another catastrophe.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., on Thursday proposed the United States take responsibility for building a global tsunami warning system and spending $7.5 million a year to maintain it.

Such a system exists only in the Pacific Ocean. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26 created the tsunami that devastated parts of southern Asia.

"The death and destruction caused by the South Asian tsunami has exposed a glaring gap in our high-tech age of global connectedness," Lieberman said. "And that is the absence of a worldwide tsunami detection and warning system that existing technology can provide us at a relatively low cost."

Lieberman's bill calls for expanding the Pacific system and adding similar ones in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

The Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would use up to 50 ocean-based sensors, each costing up to $250,000 to install and $50,000 a year to maintain. Six now exist in the Pacific. NOAA also would have to pay to collect and relay the information from the ocean to satellites to international warning centers. Though tsunamis are rare, Lieberman and other government officials said the potential devastation justified the cost.

"If you had a huge tsunami hitting Florida or New York, or it could go right up the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River, you would have a major disaster," said Larry Roeder, who heads the State Department's Global Disaster Information Network.

GDIN is working on such a design for protecting huge populations in coastal areas. It will be presented to the United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Disaster Reduction this month in Kobe, Japan.

Only three years ago the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, run by NOAA, got a half-dozen sensors to transmit tsunami data in the Pacific that could be relayed by satellite to scientists.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the Kenya-based U.N. Environment Program, said Thursday that setting up a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean is a high priority, especially to protect small island nations. He said several countries were asking for U.N. help to study how to do it.

"Let us hope that this spirit of solidarity with the victims and their families can be carried on beyond this tragedy, so that the existing and emerging environmental threats ... can also be tackled," Toepfer said.

Australian scientists are designing an Indian Ocean warning system for about $20 million. About 30 seismographs would detect earthquakes, and 10 tidal gauges and six special buoys would provide deep-ocean assessment and tsunami reporting.

None of the systems proposed, including Lieberman's, accounts for a more costly factor _ communications links to warn people in coastal areas before giant waves arrive.

Commerce Secretary nominee Carlos Gutierrez said at his Senate confirmation hearing this week that better analysis and prediction of weather and maritime hazards will be a priority.

Lieberman said he didn't know how long building a global tsunami warning system would take.

Had such a system been in place in the Indian Ocean, NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher says, thousands of lives might have been spared.

Six tsunami buoys are connected to pressure recorders 20,000 feet below on the ocean floor in the Pacific, and Lautenbacher wants to add 15 more in that ocean. However, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said it would take seven years to do just that.

"That is not acceptable with what is happening out there," Inouye told Gutierrez. "We have the technology, we have the system in place. All we need is the commitment to carry this out."

i kind of hate lieberman... mainly because he has a tendency to sponsor/write/introduce bills like this when they are fashionable to do so but is actually doing it for the rider hes attaching.

why would the united states alone foot the bill to install the system though? if its meant to be worldwide wouldn't this be better suited in a UN type forum??

On the one hand, the US is probably the best equipped nation to provide the technology and funding for such a project. And on the other hand, the UN is primarily funded by the US, so it is kind of in the US's hands no matter what.

Whether or not it is a UN thing, and it probably should NOT be, it would be fine to see other nations provide some logistics, information, and funding as well.

A little late for this, wouldn't you say, Joe?

The Indian Ocean gets a tsunami like this once in over a hundred years. If they got tsunamis often, there would be a system of some sort like there is in the Pacific.

If they build this thing in the Indian Ocean, the components will rust before it is ever useful again.

Next they're going to propose a system in the Atlantic Ocean.

--PunkDavid

Why don't we just build a giant wall around the country, with big gates. We could put a dome over the top, fuck yea!

* on average, it occurs once every hundred years. It could happen again tomorrow or maybe 200 years from now. However, I heard experts saying that these earthquakes tend to occur in clusters, and that back in the 50's (i think ?) there were 3 big earthquakes that occured in the Indian Ocean over a 10-year period.

You're right of course, but we also have to remember that even if there were 3 big earthquakes in ten years a few decades ago (I don't know the facts on this), none of them was anywhere near as powerful as this one was. The last time there was anything approachingf this magnitude in that part of the world was Krakatoa in 1883 (?) and that had more effect on the Pacific basin than on the Indian.

I dunno. I just think there is so much money wasted on REACTION to things like this. Even things like all the focus that has been made on airports post-9/11. The next attack isn't going to happen that way, and unless people in power start thinking outside the box, they aren't going to be able to prevent the next catastrope, man-made or natural.

--PunkDavid

Uhh...the plan calls for the same stuff in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico.

Has there EVER been a tsunami in the Altlantic? It's not exactly earthquake central.

--PunkDavid

Surprise!!! Right after this tsunami, I heard on the news that many states on the east coast were asking for a warning sytem of their own.
By the way, the one that is being requested for the Indian Ocean has the initial costs and then yearly costs. I also don't think WE alone should be involved in putting a system in. Let the UN decide this one. We decided to go into Iraq against the UN's best thinking and look at the mess we are in.