Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
as a single warning center and can provide the required support for reliable and
sustainable global TWC operations.
•
NOAA/NWS and the TWCs should adopt national, and where available, international,
standards, best practices, and lessons learned for all functions, technology, processes,
and products.
•
If NOAA/NWS maintains the current organizational structure, then it should harmonize
and standardize technologies, processes, and products between the two TWCs.
•
NOAA/NWS and the TWCs should undertake ongoing, joint, or NOAA-wide bench-
marking and continuous process improvement activities for their functional, techno-
logical, organizational, or human capital initiatives; report those activities internally
and externally; and incentivize excellent performance as well as best practices.
•
NOAA/NWS and the TWCs should develop measures of performance and benchmark
individual, organizational, and technical performance against industry and agency
metrics; identify areas for improvement; set short- and long-term performance goals;
develop reward and incentive systems for such goals; and celebrate TWC and agency
accomplishments as performance improves, in order to raise the level of TWC perfor-
mance to that expected of a high-reliability organization.
•
NOAA/NWS and the TWCs should increase their use of internal and external review
processes, as detailed below.
THE TSUNAMI WARNING CENTERS
The Paciic Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) was established as the Honolulu Observatory
in 1949 after the April 1, 1946, tsunami generated in the Aleutian Islands
1
caused casualties and
damage on the Hawaiian Islands. Following the 1960 Chile tsunami, the Honolulu Observatory
expanded its AOR to cover all nations along the Paciic basin (Intergovernmental Oceano-
graphic Commission, 1965). After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the PTWC's responsibility
was again expanded to include the Indian Ocean and Caribbean Sea nations.
The West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WC/ATWC) was established as the Palmer
Observatory after the great 1964 Alaskan earthquake, which devastated parts of Anchorage. In
the 1980s and 1990s, its AOR was expanded to include tsunami warnings for California, Oregon,
Washington, and British Columbia if potential tsunamigenic earthquakes were detected in
their coastal areas. This delineation was changed in 1996 to include all Paciic-basin tsunami-
genic sources for California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. After the 2004
Indian Ocean tsunami, the WC/ATWC's responsibility expanded to include the U.S. Atlantic and
Gulf coasts, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Atlantic coast of Canada. The PTWC has the
following areas of responsibility (Figure 5.1):
•
the State of Hawaii
•
Guam, American Samoa, and other U.S. Paciic assets
1
Weinstein, 2008.
