Tsunami centers to be staffed around clock

PALMER, Alaska – The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center goes to round-the-clock staffing in April.

A portion of $24 million appropriated by Congress in May to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will allow 24-hour staffing, seven days a week, at the nation’s two tsunami warning centers, here and at Ewa Beach, Hawaii.

The government allocated the money in response to the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26, 2004.

The federally mandated 24-hour staffing will shave off the few minutes it might take scientists to get to the center to issue an alert, said Paul Whitmore, director of the warning center in Alaska.

“Rather than responding from dead sleep, we’ll already have people there,” Whitmore said. “We’re definitely better off this way.”

The Alaska center registers about 400 to 500 earthquake alarms per year from around the world.