Fourteen months after Japan’s killer tsunami sent boats, bodies, homes and tons of other material into Earth’s largest ocean, no one knows when the debris will begin landing on Hawaii shores — or whether it will even be identifiable when it does.

Scientists are continually adjusting their computer models to track the estimated 1.5 million tons of debris stretching from the Philippines to Alaska.

And county, state and federal officials have begun trying to figure out how to deal with the debris when it reaches Hawaii.

Original forecasts predicted debris would reach Alaska, British Columbia and the West Coast of the continental United States, head south and then join the massive Great Pacific Garbage Patch swirling between California and Hawaii.

Then, according to the original forecasts, the lighter pieces of debris in the next few years would begin reaching the northeast shores of some Hawaiian islands.

But the debris has defied many of the earliest predictions and has proven difficult to track because it’s spread over a vast area estimated to be three times larger than the continental United States.

"I don’t think we can say accurately at this point exactly where — and exactly when — this stuff will start showing up," said Carey Morishige, Pacific Islands regional coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine debris program. "People are definitely more aware of marine debris, but it’s really difficult to tell for the most part. You can’t tell it from normal debris, especially in Hawaii where we get stuff from the Asia region normally."

Frustrations over the lack of hard predictions for the future of the debris already hitting the West Coast boiled over in Washington, D.C., this month when an assistant NOAA administrator could not give members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation firm forecasts on how much debris will reach their states’ shores — or over how long a time.

After NOAA Assistant Administrator David Kennedy was grilled by senators on May 17, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., summarized Kennedy’s testimony as "we don’t have a clue about the debris," according to The Seattle Times.

Kennedy later told ABC News, "We do not have the funds to mount a cleanup, especially in areas that are as remote or some of the Northwestern Hawaiian islands, certainly remote areas. We just don’t have those funds."

What is known is that Japanese officials estimate that 5 million tons of debris entered the ocean after the March 11, 2011, tsunami and an estimated 70 percent sank near the Japanese coast.

The remaining estimate of 1.5 million tons is believed to be separated into two general groups:

» Lighter debris bobbing on the ocean’s surface about 1,000 miles north of the main Hawaiian islands. This debris is being propelled by both currents and wind.

» Heavier, submerged debris moving slower with less push from the wind.

Satellite images and aerial photographs have provided little help tracking the debris because it’s spread so far apart in a vast ocean.

"The reality is we don’t know what is there," said Nikolai Maximenko, a senior researcher at the University of Hawaii’s International Pacific Research Center who has developed computer models to track the debris along with scientific programmer Jan Hafner.

After reviewing aerial and satellite images, he said, "All I was able to see were whitecaps of breaking waves and clouds."

The debris also has defied early predictions and concerns that it could overwhelm Midway Atoll en route to Hawaii, and harm the environment of the federally protected Northwestern Hawaiian islands when it was supposed to reach the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument late last year or early this year.

Neither concern about Midway or Papahanau-mokuakea became reality.

Instead, Morishige said, "there have been no confirmed sightings of marine debris from the Japan tsunami" at Midway or Papahanaumokuakea.

But concerns accelerated last weekend when the remnants of a floating dock system apparently unrelated to Japan washed ashore at Kalaeloa, leaving thousands of tiny pieces of Styrofoam in tide pools and littered among native plants.

Environmental activist Carroll Cox first saw the debris on May 18, but it wasn’t until Monday morning that a crew from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources began cleaning up the mess.

"We should try to collect this (tsunami) debris before it hits any shore," said state Rep. Kymberly Marcos Pine (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point), who represents a makai portion of the area around Kalaeloa and paddles in the ocean where the debris came ashore. "Once it gets on shore, you start affecting things on the land and there’s the possibility that it will connect to every part of us. The conversation should be, ‘What do we do to prevent it from getting here?’"

In January, more than 80 county, state and federal representatives from each county, each police and fire department, every mayor’s office, ocean safety, UH, the Navy and the Coast Guard met for the first time at UH "to start the ball rolling" about a coordinated response to the debris once it lands, Morishige said.

But there is no firm cleanup plan yet, she said.

So for now, the people tracking the tsunami debris are carefully logging reports of Japanese material washing up from Alaska to California — while hoping that beachcombers and volunteers who clean Hawaii’s beaches will let them know when suspected Japanese debris hits Hawaii shores.

Depending on how much debris lands in the islands, much of the cleanup could rely on volunteers.

"There’s no one state or county agency or federal agency who has the capacity, capability, resources, funding, everything for what it takes to respond to all these cleanups," Morishige said. "That’s what we’re working to put together."