Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Beneits
•
Having independent research and development efforts at the two centers increases
the competition and the potential for innovative approaches developed at either
center.
•
If identical IT systems, software, and analytical methods were used, then the two
centers would offer redundancy in the system, which is especially important given
that each center's location is vulnerable to natural hazards.
•
If identical IT systems, software, and analytical methods were used, then the two
centers could leverage resources for IT development and modernization.
•
Having two centers in regions that are at great risk of tsunamis offers opportunities to
engage with and to educate the emergency management community, the public, and
media.
Risks
•
Because the two TWCs are managed by two different regional NWS ofices, the two
centers display different organizational cultures.
•
Two centers with distinct AORs and different message thresholds greatly increase the
potential for confusion and hampers effective decision making during an emergency.
•
The current geographic separation in the AOR is not intuitive and can result in dificul-
ties with regard to interpreting who is under a tsunami warning or not.
•
The current physical settings and the organizational structure within the NWS pro-
vides minimal integration with the tsunami and earthquake research community or
other operational forecast and warning centers within NOAA (e.g., all other centers are
managed by NCEP).
•
Because both the TWCs are located in remote locations, and neither is co-located at
another NOAA, seismic or mission-critical center, opportunities to leverage lessons
learned and best practices and to adopt standard processes and procedures are limited.
•
NOAA's already limited technical, professional, and economic resources are stretched
to support both centers' infrastructure, IT, and engineering maintenance and upgrades.
•
Maintaining and modernizing software and hardware systems is dificult because of
limited stafing support. Because the TWCs are currently not operationally redundant,
they lack the beneit from effectively leveraging limited staff resources (e.g., they must
hire more highly specialized IT personnel to update both systems simultaneously).
•
Supporting two robust and redundant communication networks incurs additional
expenses.
•
The two TWCs are designed to be back-ups for each other, but they do not operate
as such, creating an illusion of redundancy that could prove dangerous and costly,
because adequate resources may not have been deployed to provide needed back-up
and redundancy.
