making waves with tsunami warning systems

U.S. Plans to Expand Tsunami Alert System, spending $37.5 million to add 32 deep-ocean monitoring bouys across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to the 6 we already have in the Pacific. And other countries follow suit in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. "What made this event even more tragic," states Bush's science advisor, John Marburger III, "is the fact that [many fatalities] might have been prevented if only a warning system had been in place to alert the communities that were in harm's way."

But, it looks like that system may have already been in place, for the US Military and State Department were given enough advance warning by the six buoys of their Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre to evacuate the Navy base on Diego Garcia prior to the tsunami's hit. Before fleeing they also alerted Australia and Indonesia to the disaster, but not Sri Lanka or any of the countries most directly damaged. As Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, said, "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

Incidentally, the $37.5 million spent on the U.S. tsunami warning system is still a couple million more than Bush originally planned on giving in aid to the tsunami-struck countries.


(Yes, I know this doesn't seem to follow from the last two posts, but it makes a pretty frightening story; and I can't resist an oppurtunity to point out the ridiculous inconsistencies of the government's words.)