A public employees advocacy group said the newly constructed Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor is vulnerable to hurricanes and tsunamis — despite assurances to the contrary from federal officials.
Construction has been completed on the $331 million Daniel K. Inouye Regional Center, which will house the tsunami facility along with other National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operations. Plans are for employees to begin occupying portions of the complex this year.
The Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is critical of the location, saying the danger is that the center would be rendered inoperable by a tsunami or hurricane at the moment it is needed the most.
"Having the tsunami warning center at sea level is insane," said the group’s executive director, Jeff Ruch.
Ruch said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center requires staffing around the clock and that employees need to cross the Ford Island bridge. The bridge, he said, could become inoperable in the event of a tsunami.
NOAA said weather modeling studies have shown the new building that will house the tsunami warning center is safe and the risk of damage from a tsunami or hurricane is very low.
"It’s absolutely minimal," NOAA site manager Steve Gallagher said.
Ruch said his group isn’t suggesting that NOAA relocate all of its facilities off the Ford Island complex, which consists of five buildings and two piers.
But he said a more prudent alternative would be to situate the tsunami warning center with Hawaii state Civil Defense at Diamond Head crater.
Ruch said his group has been going back and forth with NOAA officials for three years to get information about safety concerns and the employees haven’t been satisfied with the answers.
The group has raised questions about the impact of tsunami currents on the Ford Island bridge and also on emergency shuttle vessels that would transport center employees.
Gallagher said the tsunami center is in a building that was built to survive a Category 4 hurricane, with sustained winds of 130 to 156 mph, and would occupy the third floor, about 100 feet above sea level.
He said studies show that past tsunamis, including the most recent one in Japan and destructive ones in Hawaii in 1946 and the 1960s, had no measurable impact inside Pearl Harbor.
Gallagher said the tsunami center’s site at Ford Island is a safer site than its current location a few hundred feet from the ocean at Ewa Beach.
