Subject: Requesting additional funding for NOAA Tsunami Protection

To: Dana Caccasmise, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific Southwest
Officer
From: Nicholas Clark

To whom it may concern,

Ever since NOAA’s founding, we have made great strides to protect the United States’ coasts
and people from the devastation that tsunamis can cause. From creating high-technical
tsunami/earthquake detection, such as the DART system, to setting up coastal physical protection
and barriers along the coasts affected by tsunamis, our tsunami program has been active in its
protection of the United States since the 1950s. However, since the last major tsunamis in the
United States occurred in the 1950s, as time has gone on, fewer and fewer protection and
detection systems have been produced and implemented by our team. If this trend continues to
grow, when the US is eventually hit with a large tsunami, the damage could be catastrophic
while being easily avoidable unless we implement a solution.

The simplest solution to this problem would be for you and your department to ask for more
funding for not only more resources and research for their detection technologies (primarily
DART), but also to provide states along the West Coast resources and instructions on how to
better incorporate physical barriers, such as breakwaters, dikes, floodgates, and sea walls, along
the beach fronts. While it may seem irresponsible to provide these services funding because a
major tsunami has not hit the US coast in many decades, it is my personal belief that the lack of
tsunamis disaster over the past couple of decades is all the more reason to provide this funding
because as time moves on, more people forget about the threat of tsunamis leading to less
research and funding applied to tsunami protection ultimately leading to disaster once a tsunami
inevitably hits your coast. I request that we have a meeting in the coming week to discuss how
this funding could be acquired by the end of the year.

While the work NOAA has done for the US’s protection has been great over the years, additional
funding would prove very beneficial to ensure the US’s protection for many years to come.
These precautious actions would not only protect the citizens of these communities now, but
improved detection and protection technology would keep the people safe for many generations
in the future. Please respond with a meeting time at your earliest convenience so we may begin
these funding discussions.
Thank you for your time and consideration,

Email: nrclark@noaa.edu
Phone: 888-232-9009
Date: 5/5/2022
To: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Board and Faculty
From: Dana Caccasmise
Subject: Increasing funding for tsunami protection along the West Coast
Reference: Prior email sent this week
Action Required: Attendance of funding meetings in the coming days
Distribution List: NOAA Employees

An email sent out earlier this week discussed the potential insecurities we have on the West
Coast against large-scale tsunamis which need to be addressed quickly. Here at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tsunami Program Division, we pride ourselves on our
ability to not only detect earthquakes and potential subsequent tsunamis but also to protect the
people of the United States when tsunamis hit our land. An internal solution and subsequent
meetings are being worked on to give our department additional funding for future
improvements, the contents of which are explained below.

Summary
Our main goal is “dedicated to saving lives and protecting property before, during, and after
tsunami impact through applied research, detection, forecasts, archive, mitigation, and
international coordination” (U.S. Tsunami Hazard). However, without proper funding due to the
lack of major tsunamis in the past few decades, our technology and protection have been quite
lacking for some time. Therefore, we request that everyone attend the meetings starting
tomorrow that will discuss the obtainment and distribution of additional funding for our
department

Background on the Need for Additional Funding

The Solution
Our current problem, as stated before, is that we are lacking the funding to increase our research
and development for our detection technology and provide coastal areas with proper ground
protection for when a tsunami would emerge. The last major tsunami struck the West Coast in
the 1960s, and since it has been so long since the last attack, we have slowly stopped supplying
states along the coast with proper protection. It is only a matter of time before a disastrous
earthquake/tsunami combination happens again, and with our current funding, technology, and
infrastructure, we would not be prepared for it.
The Solution
The increased funding we will be discussing in our meetings would mainly go into two of our
important resources: technology upgrades and infrastructure remodeling and replenishing.
Firstly, we would modernize our DART detection system to be on par with current detection
systems as seen in other countries. That would also require us to build several more DART
systems to have better control along the coastline and support regions such as Alaska and
Hawaii. Secondly, and most importantly, we need to fund construction projects, such as
breakwaters, dikes, floodgates, and sea walls, along the western coastline. This is our main line
of defense for the people in these regions and should be our main priority when applying this
additional funding.

Conclusion
Our team has made our number one priority to protect the people of the United States from
tsunami disasters, and this additional funding is needed to help us to fulfill our mission. The
longer we wait, the higher chance we and the people will not be prepared, and thousands of
innocent lives will be at risk. That is why it is imperative that this funding is discussed as soon as
possible, and hopefully, we can reach our goals before the year is over. Please attend these
meetings and give input on where and how we should use this funding.

Recommendation
It is my belief that we should firstly determine how infrastructure is needed for each state and
how much needs to be replaced. This will include going to each state and speaking with state
representatives and locals to determine the most vulnerable places for a tsunami strike.
Hopefully, we will be able to convince these state representatives to supply additional funding
for their state’s infrastructure and also for our next piece, the DART system. With that additional
funding, we would be able to update our systems with modern hardware that tracks
earthquakes/tsunamis quicker and more accurately. We would also need to build more systems
for a larger-scale detection network, meaning we would need more funding for this as well. This
process will require collaboration from many state representatives and government officials, so
we will need to start right away to meet our optimistic goal by the end of the year. Please keep
this information in mind as we begin our meetings so we can most efficiently source and apply
this funding.
References
Simmons-Duffin, Selena. History of Tsunami: The Word and the Wave. NPR, 18 Mar. 2011,
https://www.npr.org/2011/03/18/134600508/history-of-tsunami-the-word-and-the-wave.

“Tsunamis in the United States”. Worlddata,

https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/tsunamis.php.

U.S. Tsunami Hazard. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program,

https://nws.weather.gov/nthmp/ushazard.html.

“U.S. Tsunami Warning System.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

https://www.noaa.gov/explainers/us-tsunami-warning-system.