The only official Tsunami alert system operates in the Pacific headquartered in Hawaii. The initial work on this system began after a Tsunami hit Hawaii in 1946.
Previous Tsunamis hit Hawaii in 1837, 1841, 1868, 1869, 1877, 1883, 1906, 1918, 1923, and 1933. The primitive warning system proved extremely helpful in 1957 when the most recent Tsunami hit Hawaii. Although the system provides information to all government in the Pacific, localized Tsunamis can still occur without warning from the system as has occurred in Japan, although they have moved to implement their own system to provide warnings of localized Tsunamis.
The largest Tsunami risk in the Atlantic is from a ledge in the Canary Islands. I'm quite a provincial West Coast boy, so I care little if the East Coast has a Tsunami warning system. If New York and Washington DC don't think it's important, neither do I.
However as a practical matter such a system already exists in most parts of the globe. It is operated by the NSA and the U.S. Navy which use it to detect Russian submarines by the pressure waves they generate as they pass. I suppose the NSA might wish to warn the U.S. if a Tsunami is headed toward the East Coast. On the other hand they may wish to keep it secret rather than betray the position of their pressure sensors, which the Russians have probably known about for years anyway.
The main problem with the recent Tsunami in the Asian Subcontinent was a system to make the information public via radio and television stations - plus the will to disrupt the tourism business. Both of which were missing.
. |
