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Report to Congressional Committees: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

April 2010: 

U.S. Tsunami Preparedness: 

NOAA Has Expanded Its Tsunami Programs, but Improved Planning Could 
Enhance Effectiveness: 

GAO-10-490: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-10-490, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

In June 2006, GAO reported a number of concerns about the level of 
U.S. tsunami preparedness. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA) leads U.S. efforts through three key programs: 
the Tsunami Program, which focuses on detection and warning 
activities; the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), 
which is a partnership with federal and state agencies focusing on 
hazard assessment and mitigation; and TsunamiReady, which is a 
partnership with at-risk communities focusing on education and 
emergency planning. The Tsunami Warning and Education Act of 2006 
directed improvements in NOAA’s warning and mitigation efforts and 
mandated GAO to report on its progress. This report addresses (1) the 
extent to which NOAA developed effective strategic plans for its 
tsunami programs and (2) the status of NOAA’s efforts to strengthen 
and expand the programs and move tsunami research to application. GAO 
analyzed NOAA documents and interviewed federal, state, and local 
officials responsible for tsunami planning and preparedness efforts. 

What GAO Found: 

NOAA adopted strategic plans for the Tsunami Program in 2008 and NTHMP 
in 2009, which it developed by following key planning practices and 
including most of the critical components of strategic plans 
identified by leading organizations, but some components have not been 
fully developed. GAO found that NOAA’s planning process followed 
practices critical to creating effective strategic plans, such as 
involving stakeholders. Both plans also include most of the components 
of effective strategic plans—such as mission statements and long-term 
goals—but other necessary components were missing or incomplete. For 
example, in the Tsunami Program’s strategic plan, NOAA identified nine 
long-term goals but did not identify strategies and performance 
measures for three of them. Similarly, in the strategic plan for 
NTHMP, NOAA identified eight long-term goals but did not identify 
performance measures, milestones, or who is responsible for achieving 
one of the goals. Although the strategic plan for NTHMP includes a 
goal for the TsunamiReady program, it does not identify strategies for 
achieving the goal. 

Since 2005, NOAA has made progress in expanding and strengthening its 
tsunami warning and mitigation capabilities but faces challenges in 
both areas, as well as in moving its tsunami research to application. 
To enhance its warning capabilities, NOAA has, among other actions, 
deployed 39 tsunami detection buoys. Operating and maintaining the 
buoys, however, has been difficult and costly, consuming about 28 
percent of the fiscal year 2009 Tsunami Program budget. NOAA is 
exploring ways to reduce maintenance costs by improving buoy 
reliability. To enhance its tsunami hazard mitigation efforts, NOAA 
expanded NTHMP membership from the 5 Pacific Coast states to all 29 at-
risk coastal U.S. states and territories, changed how it funds 
mitigation projects in states and territories, and restructured NTHMP 
to better meet its program goals. NOAA’s efforts to mitigate tsunami 
impacts through its TsunamiReady program, however, have been hampered 
by limited community participation. Although the number of 
TsunamiReady communities has increased from 27 in 2006 to 74 as of 
February 2010, overall participation in this voluntary program remains 
relatively low among the more than 760 communities identified as at 
risk for a tsunami. In this regard, GAO recommended in 2006 that NOAA 
conduct an assessment to identify potential barriers to program 
participation. Although NOAA has not yet conducted this assessment, 
GAO continues to believe that such an assessment is needed to help 
inform the agency’s strategic planning efforts. Finally, NOAA has not 
complied with the Tsunami Warning and Education Act’s requirement to 
develop and execute a plan for the transfer of technology from 
research into the Tsunami Program. Furthermore, NOAA’s initial failure 
to follow its agencywide research transition policy contributed to a 2-
year delay in moving the new tsunami forecasting system from research 
to application in its tsunami warning centers. Only after NOAA 
developed a transition plan in 2009 that was consistent with the 
agencywide policy did the transition of the system begin to move 
forward more efficiently. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that NOAA revise its tsunami strategic plans to ensure 
that all plan components are complete and develop a transition plan 
specifically for tsunami research. NOAA reviewed a draft of this 
report and agreed with its recommendations. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-490] or key 
components. For more information, contact Anu Mittal at (202) 512-
3841or mittala@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

NOAA Followed Key Planning Practices and Generally Included Critical 
Components in Developing Its Tsunami Programs' Strategic Plans: 

NOAA Has Expanded and Strengthened Its Tsunami Programs, but Some 
Challenges Remain: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Commerce: 

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Status of NOAA's Strategic Plans for the Tsunami Program and 
NTHMP: 

Table 2: Number of TsunamiReady Communities and At-Risk Communities as 
of February 2010: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Configuration of DART Detection Buoy System: 

Figure 2: Tsunami Program Funding by Activity, Fiscal Years 1997 
through 2009: 

Figure 3: Tsunami Program Funding Priorities, Fiscal Years 1997 
through 2009: 

Figure 4: Areas of Responsibility of U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers: 

Figure 5: U.S. DART Detection Buoy Locations: 

Figure 6: NOAA's Process for Moving Research to Application: 

Abbreviations: 

DART: Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis: 

NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: 

NTHMP: National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program: 

PMEL: Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory: 

SIFT: Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548: 

April 28, 2010: 

The Honorable Maria Cantwell:
Chairman:
The Honorable Olympia J. Snowe:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard:
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation:
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Brian Baird:
Chairman:
The Honorable Bob Inglis:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment:
Committee on Science and Technology:
House of Representatives: 

On September 29, 2009, the U.S. territory of American Samoa was struck 
by a tsunami that hit the island within 20 minutes after a strong 
underwater earthquake, destroying coastal infrastructure and killing 
over 190 people in the region. Although such damaging tsunamis are 
relatively rare,[Footnote 1] the destruction caused by this event--as 
well as by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the February 
2010 tsunami that struck Chilean shores after a magnitude 8.8 
earthquake--has shown the importance of having a robust system to 
detect, issue warnings for, and mitigate the impacts of tsunamis. 
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
(NOAA), the Pacific Coast states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, 
Oregon, and Washington, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin 
Islands in the Caribbean Sea, face the greatest tsunami hazard in the 
United States and its territories. In comparison, the U.S. East and 
Gulf Coasts are relatively low-hazard areas. 

Federal, state, and local government agencies are all involved in 
efforts to reduce the potential impacts of tsunamis. NOAA's Tsunami 
Program is primarily responsible for federal tsunami detection and 
warning activities. Under this program, NOAA's National Weather 
Service operates two tsunami warning centers, which monitor data from 
seismic networks operated by NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, states, 
and universities, and issue warnings when tsunamis are likely. 
[Footnote 2] NOAA's Tsunami Program also provides leadership and 
funding for the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP). 
This program, begun in 1996, is a partnership among NOAA, the U.S. 
Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 
coastal state emergency management and geological agencies to assess 
tsunami hazards, improve and coordinate tsunami warning systems, and 
develop state and local hazard mitigation programs. In addition, NTHMP 
has taken a lead role in overseeing and making recommendations for 
improving the TsunamiReady preparedness program. TsunamiReady is a 
voluntary program that encourages local communities to educate 
citizens on tsunami hazards, develop tsunami mitigation plans, and 
establish local warning systems; the program also confers TsunamiReady 
recognition on communities that meet its guidelines. 

In June 2006, we reported that NOAA faced significant challenges in 
reducing the potential impacts of tsunamis on U.S. coastal 
communities.[Footnote 3] Specifically, we reported that NOAA was 
significantly expanding its tsunami warning, mitigation, and research 
efforts in the wake of the Indian Ocean event, but the Tsunami Program 
and NTHMP lacked long-range strategic plans. We also reported that 
although the two tsunami warning centers could quickly detect and warn 
of potential tsunamis, false alarms called into question the accuracy 
and reliability of the warnings. Further, the efforts of at-risk 
communities to mitigate potential tsunami impacts varied widely, and 
few communities had chosen to participate in the TsunamiReady 
preparedness program. We recommended that NOAA take actions to help 
communities determine the potential impact of tsunamis, reduce the 
number of false alarms, improve testing of the warning system, 
identify barriers to participation in TsunamiReady, evaluate the NTHMP 
to assist in strategic planning, and develop comprehensive strategic 
plans for the Tsunami Program and NTHMP. 

Subsequently, in December 2006, Congress passed the Tsunami Warning 
and Education Act to improve the Tsunami Program's warning, 
mitigation, and research efforts nationwide.[Footnote 4] The acts' 
purposes include enhancing and modernizing the existing detection and 
warning system for the Pacific Ocean and expanding this system to 
include other vulnerable states and territories in the Atlantic Ocean, 
Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. The act also requires NOAA's 
National Weather Service to develop and execute a transition plan for 
moving technology from its research efforts into application within 
the forecasting and warning program. In addition, the act mandates 
that we evaluate and report to relevant congressional committees by 
January 31, 2010, the status of NOAA's efforts. We reported our 
preliminary findings in a briefing to the staff of the Senate 
Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, of the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and to the staff 
of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, of the Committee 
on Science and Technology, on December 11, 2009. We are following up 
with this report, which provides more detail on the topics covered in 
the briefing. This report addresses (1) the extent to which NOAA 
developed effective strategic plans for the Tsunami Program and NTHMP 
and (2) the status of NOAA's efforts since 2005 to strengthen and 
expand the programs and move tsunami research to application. 

To assess the extent to which NOAA developed effective strategic plans 
for the Tsunami Program and NTHMP, we reviewed the practices NOAA used 
to develop the programs' strategic plans and compared them with key 
practices used by leading organizations we had previously identified. 
[Footnote 5] We also compared the strategic plans' components with 
critical components that should be included in strategic plans as 
identified by leading organizations and our prior work.[Footnote 6] In 
addition, we reviewed agency documents and interviewed NOAA officials 
about the processes and components of each plan. To describe the 
status of efforts since 2005 to improve the tsunami programs and move 
tsunami research to application, we reviewed program requirements in 
the Tsunami Warning and Education Act and analyzed NOAA documents to 
help determine the extent to which the agency has implemented efforts 
to strengthen the programs' warning and mitigation components. We 
visited NOAA's tsunami warning centers in Alaska and Hawaii and met 
with the centers' directors and staff to discuss their tsunami 
detection and warning efforts. We discussed the status of NOAA's 
tsunami warning and mitigation efforts with federal, state, and local 
officials, including NTHMP participants and officials from Alabama, 
Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington to 
determine the extent to which services have changed. We also analyzed 
NOAA's policy and implementation procedures for the transition of 
research to application and interviewed NOAA officials about how such 
transitions in the Tsunami Program have been implemented, focusing on 
the ongoing effort to move tsunami forecasting research to application 
in the tsunami warning centers. We assessed the reliability of the 
NOAA data that we used, by reviewing agency documentation and 
interviewing agency officials about the data's sources and uses, and 
found them to be sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. 

We conducted this performance audit from May 2009 to April 2010, in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

A tsunami is a series of ocean waves typically generated by an 
underwater earthquake.[Footnote 7] The size of the resulting tsunami 
depends on a complex set of factors, including the earthquake's 
magnitude, its depth below the ocean floor, depth of the overlying 
water, type and amount of seafloor movement, and energy released. A 
tsunami wave may be very small in the deep ocean, but as it approaches 
land, it can increase to tens of feet in height and reach shore as a 
fast-moving wall of turbulent water. Tsunamis can be classified as 
local or distant. A tsunami generated by an earthquake off the coast 
of Alaska would be considered a local tsunami for that state's coastal 
areas, striking within minutes of the event, while the same event 
would be considered a distant tsunami for the coast of Washington, 
which would not likely be hit until 3 or more hours later. Both types 
of tsunami pose an inundation threat to low-lying coastal communities 
from multiple destructive waves that can penetrate far inland. Local 
tsunamis pose particular emergency preparedness challenges because 
there may not be enough time to sound a warning. In this situation, 
public education and outreach can save lives by teaching the community 
to recognize the emergency and move immediately to higher ground. 

The process that the tsunami warning centers use to detect potential 
tsunamis and issue warnings involves several steps. The warning 
centers first monitor and evaluate data from seismic networks, and if 
a tsunami is likely, they transmit a tsunami warning message to NOAA's 
weather-forecasting offices and state emergency management centers, 
among others. The warning centers also monitor coastal water-level 
data, as well as data from NOAA's network of Deep-ocean Assessment and 
Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) detection buoys, to determine if a 
tsunami has actually been generated and, if not, to cancel any warning 
(see figure 1). NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) 
conducted the research and developed the DART buoys and conducts other 
research in support of the Tsunami Program, such as the development of 
tsunami inundation forecast models for at-risk locations. Tsunami 
forecast models are used by scientists at the warning centers and the 
research laboratory to help estimate the size of the expected waves 
and their potential impact on coastal areas. For example, after a 
massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Chile in February 
2010, NOAA scientists initially warned that tsunami waves of about 8 
feet could strike Hawaii, but as the tsunami moved across the Pacific, 
the forecast models helped to more accurately predict the 
approximately 3-foot tsunami waves that actually struck the islands 
more than 12 hours after the earthquake. 

Figure 1: Configuration of DART Detection Buoy System: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Depicted in the illustration are the following: 

Satellite: Two-way communication with: 
Tsunami warning center; 
Surface Buoy (anchored by Mooring line). 

Surface Buoy: Two-way communication with: 
DART detection buoy (Recording device): 
Consists of an anchored recording device on the seafloor and a 
companion buoy moored at the surface. The seafloor device can detect 
changes in water pressure and seafloor movement and transmits the 
information to the surface buoy; the surface buoy transmits the data 
to NOAA via satellite. 

Source: GAO and PMEL. 

[End of figure] 

NOAA allocates its annual appropriations and other funds to three main 
categories of activities in its Tsunami Program: 

* warning: including activities pertaining to tsunami warning centers, 
DART buoys, seismic and sea-level monitoring networks, and tsunami 
data management; 

* mitigation: including activities pertaining to NTHMP, TsunamiReady, 
and the International Tsunami Information Center;[Footnote 8] and: 

* research: including activities conducted by PMEL and the National 
Data Buoy Center.[Footnote 9] 

From fiscal year 1997 through fiscal year 2004, NOAA's allocations to 
fund tsunami activities remained fairly constant, ranging from about 
$5 million to $10 million. After the Indian Ocean tsunami, funding 
increased significantly, from about $27 million in fiscal year 2005 to 
$42 million in fiscal year 2009 (see figure 2). 

Figure 2: Tsunami Program Funding by Activity, Fiscal Years 1997 
through 2009: 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

Annual funding: 

Fiscal year: 1997; 
Warning: $2 million; 
Mitigation: $3 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 1998; 
Warning: $2 million; 
Mitigation: $3 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 1999; 
Warning: $2 million; 
Mitigation: $3 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2000; 
Warning: $2 million; 
Mitigation: $2 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2001; 
Warning: $3 million; 
Mitigation: $4 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2002; 
Warning: $3 million; 
Mitigation: $4 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2003; 
Warning: $3 million; 
Mitigation: $3 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2004; 
Warning: $5 million; 
Mitigation: $5 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2005; 
Warning: $17 million; 
Mitigation: $9 million; 
Research: $2 million. 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
Warning: $12 million; 
Mitigation: $5 million; 
Research: $1 million. 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
Warning: $19 million; 
Mitigation: $6 million; 
Research: $2 million. 

Fiscal year: 2008; 
Warning: $18 million; 
Mitigation: $8 million; 
Research: $2 million. 

Fiscal year: 2009; 
Warning: $27 million; 
Mitigation: $12 million; 
Research: $3 million. 

Source: GAO analysis of NOAA data. 

[End of figure] 

While funding levels generally increased from fiscal year 1997 through 
fiscal year 2009 for all three categories of tsunami-related 
activities, according to NOAA officials, the proportion allocated to 
warning increased from about 40 percent from fiscal year 1997 through 
fiscal year 2004 to approximately 70 percent of total program funding 
from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2009 (see figure 3). In 
comparison, the proportion allocated to mitigation decreased from 
about 50 percent from fiscal year 1997 through fiscal year 2004 to 
approximately 30 percent of total funding from fiscal year 2005 
through fiscal year 2009, and the proportion of research funding 
remained relatively constant, at about 6 to 10 percent of the total. 

Figure 3: Tsunami Program Funding Priorities, Fiscal Years 1997 
through 2009: 

[Refer to PDF for image: multiple line graph] 

Percentage of tsunami funding: 

Fiscal year: 1997; 
Research: 11%; 
Mitigation: 47%; 
Warning: 42%. 

Fiscal year: 1998; 
Research: 12%; 
Mitigation: 46%; 
Warning: 43%. 

Fiscal year: 1999; 
Research: 12%; 
Mitigation: 45%; 
Warning: 43%. 

Fiscal year: 2000; 
Research: 12%; 
Mitigation: 43%; 
Warning: 45%. 

Fiscal year: 2001; 
Research: 10%; 
Mitigation: 52%; 
Warning: 37%. 

Fiscal year: 2002; 
Research: 10%; 
Mitigation: 52%; 
Warning: 38%. 

Fiscal year: 2003; 
Research: 12%; 
Mitigation: 43%; 
Warning: 44%. 

Fiscal year: 2004; 
Research: 7%; 
Mitigation: 46%; 
Warning: 47%. 

Fiscal year: 2005; 
Research: 6%; 
Mitigation: 33%; 
Warning: 61%. 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
Research: 7%; 
Mitigation: 27%; 
Warning: 66%. 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
Research: 6%; 
Mitigation: 22%; 
Warning: 72%. 

Fiscal year: 2008; 
Research: 8%; 
Mitigation: 28%; 
Warning: 64%. 

Fiscal year: 2009; 
Research: 8%; 
Mitigation: 28%; 
Warning: 64%. 

Source: GAO analysis of NOAA data. 

[End of figure] 

Starting in fiscal year 2009, funding for the Tsunami Program-- 
including all three categories of tsunami-related activity--received a 
significant boost from the proceeds of the Federal Communication 
Commission's auctioning of the broadcast frequency spectrum previously 
devoted to carrying analog television signals. The auction proceeds 
are to provide a total of about $50 million to the program through 
fiscal year 2012, when this funding will expire. In fiscal year 2009, 
spectrum auction funding provided $13.7 million, which amounted to 32 
percent of the $42 million of total Tsunami Program funding for the 
year. The program also benefits from significant in-kind support and 
resources, such as data from seismic and water-level monitors operated 
by other agencies or nations; NOAA has not estimated the monetary 
value of this support. 

NOAA Followed Key Planning Practices and Generally Included Critical 
Components in Developing Its Tsunami Programs' Strategic Plans: 

The planning processes NOAA used to develop its Tsunami Program and 
NTHMP strategic plans followed the three key practices leading 
organizations use to create effective strategic plans. The plans also 
generally include the critical components of effective plans--such as 
mission statements and long-term goals--and are closely linked through 
their goals and strategies, but some components of the plans have not 
been fully developed. 

NOAA Followed Key Planning Practices to Develop Its Strategic Plans: 

In our prior work, we identified three key practices that were 
critical for leading organizations to follow in the creation of 
effective strategic plans:[Footnote 10] 

* Involving stakeholders, such as federal agencies, state governments, 
or others, in defining the mission and desired outcomes helps ensure 
that their expectations and interests are met and that resources and 
efforts are targeted at the program's highest priorities. 

* Assessing external and internal forces helps managers anticipate 
future challenges and make adjustments before potential problems 
become crises. For example, external forces--such as emerging 
technological trends and new statutory requirements--and internal 
forces--such as culture, management practices, and business processes--
may influence the program's ability to achieve its goals. 

* Aligning program activities to support mission-related outcomes 
helps ensure that programs effectively and efficiently produce 
services that meet customers' needs and stakeholders' interests. 
Assessing the extent to which a program's activities, processes, and 
resources contribute to meeting its mission and desired outcomes can 
identify inadequate or obsolete organizational structures that need to 
be changed. 

NOAA adopted strategic plans in 2008 for the Tsunami Program and in 
2009 for NTHMP. We found that NOAA's planning process for developing 
these plans included the three key practices. Specifically, to develop 
the Tsunami Program's strategic plan, NOAA assembled a planning 
committee of relevant agency officials, who drafted the plan, and then 
involved stakeholders, including NTHMP members, by giving them the 
opportunity to review and comment on the draft plan. The planning 
committee assessed the external and internal forces relevant to the 
program by analyzing the program's strengths, weaknesses, 
opportunities, and threats. For example, the planning committee 
determined that the tsunami warning centers were issuing confusing 
information statements during events, an internal weakness that 
threatened its warning mission. In addition, as the planning committee 
developed the Tsunami Program's strategic plan, NOAA officials aligned 
the program's structure to meet the purpose of the program as provided 
in the Tsunami Warning and Education Act and to ensure that its 
activities supported this mission. For example, the plan identifies 
four areas of responsibility in the Tsunami Program that align with 
the main sections of the act: (1) tsunami forecasting and warning, (2) 
National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, (3) tsunami research, and 
(4) global tsunami warning and mitigation. 

Likewise, when developing the NTHMP's strategic plan, NOAA assembled a 
planning committee of stakeholders and then shared a draft of the 
strategic plan with all NTHMP members to incorporate their comments, 
helping to ensure that their interests and expectations were met. 
According to NOAA officials, the planning committee assessed the 
external and internal forces potentially affecting the NTHMP, as was 
done for the Tsunami Program. For example, the analysis identified 
certain NTHMP goals that depended on external forces, such as state 
and local agencies, and were therefore beyond the program's full 
control. Finally, NTHMP's strategic plan was organized to align its 
goals and strategies with key components of the program as identified 
in the Tsunami Warning and Education Act, specifically, to coordinate 
warning activities, promote and improve community education and 
mitigation, and improve the quality and extent of inundation modeling 
and mapping.[Footnote 11] 

NOAA's Tsunami Strategic Plans Generally Include Critical Components, 
but Some Are Missing or Incomplete: 

Our past work has shown that effective strategic plans should include 
six critical components:[Footnote 12] 

* A comprehensive mission statement that explains why a program exists 
and tells what it does. 

* Long-term goals and objectives that specify how an agency will carry 
out its mission and explain what results are expected from the program. 

* Strategies to achieve the goals and objectives that are specific 
enough to allow an assessment of whether they will help achieve those 
goals. For example, strategies may describe the processes, skills, 
technologies, and resources needed to achieve a program's goals and 
objectives. 

* A description of how performance measures will be used to assess 
progress toward long-term goals, including (1) the specific activities 
within the program that will be assessed for performance and (2) the 
target level of performance to be achieved for each measure. 

* The identification of external factors that could significantly 
affect achievement of the strategic goals, such as economic trends or 
actions by Congress, state and federal agencies, or other entities. 
Assessing external factors helps agencies evaluate the likelihood of 
achieving strategic goals that depend on the actions of others. 

* A description of how program evaluations are to be used to establish 
or revise strategic goals and a schedule of future planned evaluations. 

We found that the Tsunami Program and NTHMP strategic plans generally 
include most of the critical components of effective strategic plans. 
Specifically, for the Tsunami Program's strategic plan, we found that 
it identifies the program's mission, nine long-term goals for meeting 
its mission, strategies to achieve most of the goals, activities to 
implement the strategies, and some performance measures to assess 
progress. Additionally, during the planning process, the Tsunami 
Program's strategic planning team identified factors external to the 
program that could significantly affect achievement of the strategic 
goals. For example, the planning committee identified current support 
from the U.S. Geological Survey, which provides seismic data, as one 
external factor that, if changed, could affect the program's ability 
to achieve its goals. Also, the planning committee reviewed relevant 
program evaluations, such as our 2006 report, to incorporate these 
findings and recommendations into the strategic plan. 

Nevertheless, some key components of the Tsunami Program's strategic 
plan are not fully developed. For example, although the plan 
identifies nine long-term goals, it does not identify strategies, 
performance measures, or the agency offices responsible for achieving 
the strategies for three of the goals. These three goals are (1) 
provide technical assistance, training, and capacity development both 
at global and regional levels, supporting a fully operational tsunami 
warning system; (2) integrate with other relevant national, regional, 
and global ocean and coastal observation, warning, mitigation, and 
risk management systems; and (3) develop effective networks to 
disseminate tsunami information to the public through partnerships 
with formal and informal education entities. Furthermore, while the 
strategic plan lists performance measures for six goals that the 
program aims to achieve from 2008 to 2017, some are vague or lack a 
specific date for completion. For example, "reduce the cost for the 
DART network operation and maintenance" is one of the performance 
measures. This measure may not be a useful one, however, for the goal 
of having timely and accurate tsunami forecast and warning products 
because the measure lacks a specific target for cost reduction and a 
date for achieving it. The Tsunami Program manager acknowledged these 
limitations in the strategic plan but said that although the plan did 
not contain strategies and performance measures for the three goals, 
the planning committee had developed an action plan, separate from the 
strategic plan, which identified specific tasks to complete each year 
to help reach the goals. The program manager also told us that the 
planning committee was hampered in its efforts to identify performance 
measures for the three goals because they were very general, and no 
performance data existed to provide a baseline against which to 
measure progress. 

Similarly, we found that NOAA also used a planning committee to create 
a strategic plan for the NTHMP that includes nearly all the critical 
components of an effective plan. For example, to achieve NTHMP's 
mission "to reduce loss of life and property damage from tsunamis," 
the strategic plan identifies eight long-term goals. For most of these 
goals, the plan identifies several strategies and performance 
measures. For example, for the goal of having "tsunami inundation maps 
that support informed decision making in tsunami-threatened 
communities," the strategic plan lists several strategies designed to 
help achieve the goal, one of which is to "develop guidelines for 
tsunami inundation maps." The plan also names NTHMP's Mapping and 
Modeling Subcommittee as responsible for executing the strategy. Next, 
the plan identifies a performance measure for this strategy--that "new 
NTHMP-funded maps...will meet established guidelines by 2012"--so that 
program officials can assess progress toward implementation. The NTHMP 
strategic planning committee also considered external factors and 
reviewed program evaluations as it developed the program's strategic 
plan, according to NOAA officials. For example, as it developed the 
plan, the planning committee took into account the recommendations of 
several reviews, including our 2006 report and a 2005 National Science 
and Technology Council report on reducing tsunami risk in the United 
States.[Footnote 13] We also found that the Tsunami Program and NTHMP 
strategic plans are closely linked to each other in that some of the 
Tsunami Program's goals and strategies are actually met through 
NTHMP's actions. For example, the Tsunami Program identifies NTHMP as 
one of five key strategies to achieve its own goals. 

Nevertheless, as with the Tsunami Program's strategic plan, we found 
that some of the components of NTHMP's strategic plan are missing or 
not fully developed. For example, although the plan identifies eight 
long-term goals, it does not identify performance measures, 
milestones, or who is responsible for achieving the goal of developing 
understandable and effective tsunami warning center communications, 
such as tsunami warning messages for communities. According to the 
Tsunami Program manager, the NTHMP planning committee did not 
establish performance measures or milestones because achieving this 
goal is actually the responsibility of the warning centers, with 
guidance from NTHMP. In addition, the NTHMP strategic plan contains a 
goal of establishing more tsunami-resilient communities and 
establishes a performance measure of increasing the number of 
TsunamiReady communities to 105 by 2013. The plan does not, however, 
contain any specific strategies for increasing the number of 
communities. The TsunamiReady program manager told us that the NTHMP 
plans to develop goals, strategies, and performance measures for the 
TsunamiReady program in 2013, after new program recognition guidelines 
are issued. 

Table 1 summarizes our analysis of the extent to which the Tsunami 
Program and NTHMP plans include the critical components of strategic 
plans. 

Table 1: Status of NOAA's Strategic Plans for the Tsunami Program and 
NTHMP: 

Strategic plan components: Mission statement; 
Tsunami Program strategic plan: included; 
NTHMP strategic plan: included. 

Strategic plan components: Long-term goals and objectives; 
Tsunami Program strategic plan: included; 
NTHMP strategic plan: included. 

Strategic plan components: Strategies to achieve goals; 
Tsunami Program strategic plan: partially included; 
NTHMP strategic plan: partially included. 

Strategic plan components: Performance measures; 
Tsunami Program strategic plan: partially included; 
NTHMP strategic plan: partially included. 

Strategic plan components: External factors; 
Tsunami Program strategic plan: included; 
NTHMP strategic plan: included. 

Strategic plan components: Evaluations; 
Tsunami Program strategic plan: included; 
NTHMP strategic plan: included. 

Source: GAO analysis. 

[End of table] 

NOAA Has Expanded and Strengthened Its Tsunami Programs, but Some 
Challenges Remain: 

Since our 2006 report, NOAA has made progress in expanding and 
strengthening its tsunami warning and mitigation capabilities, but 
maintaining a reliable DART detection buoy network and increasing 
community participation in the TsunamiReady program have proven to be 
challenging. In addition, NOAA's initial failure to follow its 
agencywide research transition policy contributed to about a 2-year 
delay in moving a new tsunami forecast system from research to 
application in the warning centers, and NOAA has not complied with the 
Tsunami Warning and Education Act's requirement that it develop and 
execute a plan for the transfer of technology from ongoing research 
into the tsunami forecasting and warning program. 

NOAA Has Strengthened Its Tsunami Warning Capabilities While Efforts 
to Improve Reliability and Reduce the Costs of Its DART Detection Buoy 
Network Continue: 

In 2006, NOAA strengthened its tsunami warning capabilities by 
expanding the operating hours and geographic areas of responsibility 
for both of its tsunami warning centers. Before the strengthening 
effort, each of the warning centers operated with staff on site 8 
hours a day, 5 days a week, with personnel on standby the remainder of 
the time. NOAA has since increased staffing levels to operate the 
warning centers with staff on site 24 hours, 7 days a week. 
Additionally, NOAA expanded the geographic area for which each warning 
center is responsible. As shown in figure 4, the West Coast/Alaska 
Tsunami Warning Center is responsible for warning Alaska and coastal 
states of the U.S. mainland, as well as Canada, Puerto Rico, and the 
U.S. Virgin Islands. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is responsible 
for warning Hawaii and U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean, as well 
as over 90 countries across the Pacific,[Footnote 14] Indian, and 
Caribbean basins.[Footnote 15] 

Figure 4: Areas of Responsibility of U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers: 

[Refer to PDF for image: world map] 

The following areas of responsibility are depicted on the map: 

West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WC/ATWC); 
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC). 

Source: NOAA. 

[End of figure] 

To improve its ability to detect tsunamis, NOAA upgraded and expanded 
its observational networks for monitoring seismic activity and changes 
in coastal water levels, and it deployed additional DART buoys to 
detect deep-ocean tsunami waves far from shore. Since 2005, NOAA has 
installed new seismic stations in Hawaii and Alaska and integrated its 
stations with stations maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey, which 
has installed new stations in the Caribbean. Additional enhancements 
to other seismic monitoring stations operated by the U.S. Geological 
Survey in partnership with the National Science Foundation were 
completed to increase the number of stations capable of transmitting 
seismic data during an event.[Footnote 16] In the Pacific Ocean and 
Caribbean Sea, NOAA also added 16 new water-level monitoring stations 
and upgraded 33 existing stations to support tsunami detection. 
[Footnote 17] The new and upgraded water-level stations are now 
capable of providing data on changes in water level to the warning 
centers faster and more often to confirm whether a seismic event has 
actually generated a tsunami. Additionally, in March 2008, NOAA 
completed its 3-year project to expand the network of DART detection 
buoys from 6 to 39 buoys. These buoys are strategically deployed 
across the Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean basins, as shown in figure 
5, in regions with a history of generating tsunamis. 

Figure 5: U.S. DART Detection Buoy Locations: 

[Refer to PDF for image: world map] 

U.S. DART Detection Buoy locations are depicted on the map. 

Source: NOAA. 

[End of figure] 

To enhance its tsunami forecasting capabilities, NOAA began 
implementing in 2006 a new tsunami forecasting system developed by 
PMEL, called the Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis 
(SIFT), which uses data from the DART detection buoys. NOAA's tsunami 
warning centers have been relying on a model that uses location and 
magnitude data from previous earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean to 
predict whether a seismic event could generate a tsunami, the 
potential wave heights, and possible impact areas.[Footnote 18] The 
new forecast system will supplement the existing model by providing 
estimates of additional tsunami characteristics, such as current 
velocities and inundation levels, for 75 specific coastal locations. 
[Footnote 19] Additionally, the SIFT system uses deep-ocean tsunami 
wave measurements to produce, before the wave reaches shore, a more 
precise forecast than the existing model's. DART buoys provide data 
the SIFT system needs by detecting small changes in deep-ocean waves 
and quickly transmitting these data to the warning centers. Although 
warning center officials expressed concerns to us about SIFT's 
complexity and the staff time needed to operate the system during an 
event, they acknowledged that it provides a more accurate forecast 
than the existing model. NOAA is currently testing the SIFT system for 
use in the tsunami warning centers. 

Collectively, NOAA's data indicate that its efforts have enhanced its 
tsunami detection capabilities and contributed to more accurate and 
timely warnings. For example, NOAA's data indicate that the tsunami 
warning centers have a 100 percent detection rate for tsunamis 
generated within their areas of responsibility since fiscal year 2005. 
NOAA has also reduced the time needed after a seismic event for the 
warning centers to issue a warning message. For example, the time 
needed for the warning centers to issue a message for a distantly 
generated tsunami has been reduced from an average of 24 minutes in 
fiscal year 2005 to 15.7 minutes in fiscal year 2009,[Footnote 20] and 
the time needed for a local event has been reduced from an average of 
9.9 minutes in fiscal year 2005 to 5.8 minutes in fiscal year 2009. 
The warning centers have likewise made progress reducing false alarms, 
both in terms of reducing the extent of areas subject to a tsunami 
warning, as well as shortening the time that areas remain under a 
warning. For example, in fiscal year 2009, NOAA reduced the average 
time from initial warning to cancellation to about 90 minutes, 
surpassing its fiscal year 2013 goal of reducing the time that areas 
remain under warning from 3 hours to less than 2 hours. 

While NOAA has improved its tsunami warning capabilities, maintaining 
the reliability of the DART detection buoys has been challenging and 
costly. The Tsunami Warning and Education Act requires NOAA, through 
the National Weather Service, to ensure that maintaining operational 
tsunami detection equipment is the Tsunami Program's highest priority. 
When DART buoys are out of service, they cannot detect tsunamis or 
transmit data to the tsunami warning centers. According to NOAA 
records on DART buoy performance from July 2006 to August 2009, data 
were available from the buoys, on average, about 84 percent of the 
time, and according to officials, about one or two buoy outages 
occurred per month.[Footnote 21] In general, data availability goes 
down and the number of buoy outages goes up during the winter months, 
when maintenance is virtually impossible because of harsh ocean 
conditions. The situation reverses during the spring and summer 
months, when NOAA runs its scheduled buoy maintenance cruise. 
According to data from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center, which 
operates and maintains the DART buoy network, failure of mooring lines 
accounted for almost 60 percent of DART buoy outages from December 
2005 to November 2009. Center officials told us that mooring lines 
fail for a variety of reasons, including ship collisions and vessels 
that tie up to a buoy. NOAA officials told us they are working to 
resolve these problems as part of the agency's goal of having data 
from its three observational networks available at least 90 percent of 
the time by fiscal year 2013.[Footnote 22] Meanwhile, the costs of 
operating and maintaining the DART detection buoy network have been 
significant. For example, in fiscal year 2009, NOAA allocated nearly 
$12 million--about 28 percent of NOAA's total tsunami budget--to DART 
operation and maintenance. NOAA's research program and the National 
Data Buoy Center are exploring ways to reduce these costs by improving 
DART buoy reliability--for example, by identifying more durable 
materials for the mooring line and exploring alternative 
configurations for anchoring the buoys. Moving some DART stations to 
less hostile locations with reduced ocean currents and vessel traffic 
is also being assessed in an effort to improve reliability. 

NOAA Has Expanded and Reorganized Its Hazard Mitigation Program, but 
Community Participation in TsunamiReady Remains Limited: 

To improve its mitigation capabilities, NOAA significantly expanded 
NTHMP's membership and reorganized the program to better focus its 
activities toward achieving tsunami mitigation goals. In 2005, NOAA 
expanded NTHMP membership from five Pacific Coast states into a 
nationwide program including all 29 at-risk coastal U.S. states and 
territories. NOAA then restructured the NTHMP in 2007 to better meet 
the needs of the expanded program. As a result of the restructuring, 
the program consists of an overarching coordinating committee, along 
with a subcommittee to manage program efforts for key areas of 
mitigation activity: warning coordination, mapping and modeling, and 
mitigation and education. Comprising representatives from federal, 
state, and territory agencies,[Footnote 23] the coordinating committee 
assists NOAA in overall program implementation, including recommending 
how funds are to be allocated and supporting periodic reviews to 
assess the program's strengths and weaknesses. NOAA also changed the 
previous annual contracting process for funding mitigation projects--
in which the original five member states decided among themselves how 
to divide the money--to a competitive grant process in 2008. Under the 
new process, NTHMP members seeking funding must submit proposals for 
mitigation projects to a panel of subject-matter experts for 
evaluation, according to an established set of criteria, before 
recommending to NOAA which projects should be funded. Although the 
original five member states were initially concerned that NTHMP 
expansion could divert much-needed mitigation resources away from high-
risk areas in those states, officials we spoke with from these states 
generally agreed that management of the program had improved and 
available resources had increased for their states. 

While NOAA has also taken steps to strengthen its TsunamiReady 
program, increasing community participation in this voluntary program 
has been challenging. The number of communities recognized as 
TsunamiReady has increased from 27 (at the time of our 2006 report) to 
74 communities located in 10 states, Puerto Rico, and the Pacific 
territories, as of February 2010.[Footnote 24] Despite this progress, 
overall community participation remains relatively low. For example, 
the 74 communities that NOAA has recognized as TsunamiReady account 
for less than 10 percent of the more than 760 communities identified 
as at risk for a tsunami (see table 2). 

Table 2: Number of TsunamiReady Communities and At-Risk Communities as 
of February 2010: 

State/territory: California; 
TsunamiReady communities: 17; 
At-risk communities: 158. 

State/territory: Oregon; 
TsunamiReady communities: 9; 
At-risk communities: 50. 

State/territory: Washington; 
TsunamiReady communities: 9; 
At-risk communities: 52. 

State/territory: Puerto Rico; 
TsunamiReady communities: 9; 
At-risk communities: 44. 

State/territory: Alaska; 
TsunamiReady communities: 7; 
At-risk communities: 75. 

State/territory: South Carolina; 
TsunamiReady communities: 6; 
At-risk communities: 9. 

State/territory: North Carolina; 
TsunamiReady communities: 5; 
At-risk communities: 11. 

State/territory: Hawaii; 
TsunamiReady communities: 4; 
At-risk communities: 4. 

State/territory: Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; 
TsunamiReady communities: 3; 
At-risk communities: 3. 

State/territory: Florida; 
TsunamiReady communities: 2; 
At-risk communities: 37. 

State/territory: Virginia; 
TsunamiReady communities: 1; 
At-risk communities: 26. 

State/territory: Georgia; 
TsunamiReady communities: 1; 
At-risk communities: 6. 

State/territory: Guam; 
TsunamiReady communities: 1; 
At-risk communities: 1. 

State/territory: American Samoa; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 1. 

State/territory: Texas; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 11. 

State/territory: Louisiana; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 11. 

State/territory: Mississippi; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 3. 

State/territory: Alabama; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 2. 

State/territory: Maryland; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 17. 

State/territory: Delaware; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 3. 

State/territory: New Jersey; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 9. 

State/territory: New York; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 9. 

State/territory: Connecticut; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 24. 

State/territory: Massachusetts; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 64. 

State/territory: Rhode Island; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 21. 

State/territory: New Hampshire; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 8. 

State/territory: Maine; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 105. 

State/territory: U.S. Virgin Islands; 
TsunamiReady communities: 0; 
At-risk communities: 3. 

State/territory: Total; 
TsunamiReady communities: 74; 
At-risk communities: 767. 

Source: GAO analysis of NOAA data. 

[End of table] 

Communities along the Pacific Coast and in the Caribbean, where 
tsunami hazard is highest, have been the most active in seeking 
TsunamiReady recognition, while those in other areas, such as the East 
and Gulf Coasts, have been less active in participating in the 
program.[Footnote 25] For example, only 2 of 64 at-risk Gulf Coast 
communities and only 13 of 312 at-risk East Coast communities have 
been recognized as TsunamiReady. NOAA program staff and state and 
local emergency management officials offered a number of reasons for 
this apparent lack of interest in TsunamiReady recognition by the East 
and Gulf Coast communities, including limited information on the 
extent of the tsunami hazard; competing priorities for time and 
resources to plan for and respond to more common events, such as 
hurricanes; and costs to meet the recognition requirements. 
Additionally, some officials told us that some communities have been 
reluctant to pursue the designation because they believe it might draw 
undue attention to the tsunami hazard and potentially deter tourists 
from visiting their communities. 

NOAA has not conducted a formal assessment to identify barriers to or 
possible incentives for participating in the TsunamiReady program, as 
we recommended in 2006. Instead, in part on the basis of 
recommendations from a 2007 NTHMP review of the program and feedback 
from a series of NTHMP meetings and local community workshops, NOAA 
decided to focus its efforts on revising the program's recognition 
guidelines. Existing TsunamiReady guidelines have emphasized warning 
and preparedness efforts. These guidelines require TsunamiReady 
communities to establish a 24-hour warning point and emergency 
operations center and have more than one means of receiving tsunami 
warnings and alerting the public; to promote public readiness through 
community education; and to develop a formal tsunami plan, including 
plans for emergency exercises. According to a program official, 
revised guidelines under development are intended to take a more 
comprehensive approach and to address all aspects of emergency 
management planning: mitigation, preparedness, warning, response, and 
recovery. NOAA officials told us that over the next 2 years, they plan 
to work with social scientists to conduct a survey to establish a 
baseline of tsunami preparedness in at-risk coastal communities, to 
conduct pilot projects in selected communities to obtain feedback on 
and test implementation of the revised guidelines, and to conduct 
internal and external reviews of the revised guidelines. NOAA then 
plans to further revise the guidelines to address issues identified 
through these efforts before submitting them to the NTHMP coordinating 
committee for its approval. NOAA anticipates implementing the new 
TsunamiReady recognition guidelines nationwide sometime in 2012. 
Although developing new guidelines may help strengthen the 
TsunamiReady program, we continue to believe that it does not 
substitute for a comprehensive assessment to determine what potential 
barriers may be inhibiting community participation and that NOAA 
should conduct such an assessment. 

NOAA's Failure to Follow Its Research Transition Policy Contributed to 
Delays in Implementing a New Tsunami Forecasting System: 

Since 2006, NOAA has been transitioning the SIFT tsunami forecasting 
system from its developer, PMEL, to application at the tsunami warning 
centers. In large part because the laboratory and Tsunami Program 
officials did not follow NOAA's agencywide policy and implementation 
procedures for the transition of new technologies from research to 
application, numerous modifications were needed to make the system 
usable by the warning centers, leading to about a 2-year delay in 
implementation.[Footnote 26] The agency's policy and procedures 
describe a four-step process for systematically reviewing all research 
projects and, if appropriate, moving them to application. This process 
includes checkpoints for NOAA officials to ensure that all activities 
have been successfully completed before a research project can proceed 
to the next step (see figure 6). 

Figure 6: NOAA's Process for Moving Research to Application: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Step 1: 
Identify new research or technology: 
Checkpoint review. 

Step 2: 
Apply new technology to operational environment: 
Checkpoint review. 

Step 3: 
Pre-operations testing: 
Checkpoint review. 

Step 4: 
Transition to operations. 

Source: NOAA. 

[End of figure] 

When PMEL began the SIFT transition, it prepared an initial transition 
plan in 2006. This plan did not follow NOAA's transition policy, 
however, and as a result, did not undergo checkpoint reviews or 
contain all of the plan elements required by NOAA's policy and 
implementation procedures. Tsunami Program and PMEL officials told us 
they did not realize that this policy applied to the transition of 
relatively small research efforts like the SIFT system, which the 
officials said accounted for their failure to follow NOAA's transition 
policy. Although a transition team consisting of officials from the 
warning centers and PMEL was assembled, the warning center officials 
were not actively involved in developing the transition plan, which 
should identify requirements for the new technology and criteria it 
must meet to be implemented, among other things. Thus, the 2006 
transition plan did not identify requirements for the SIFT system or 
performance measures to enable PMEL and the warning centers to test 
and evaluate the system. These shortcomings left the warning centers 
with no formal mechanism to provide input into the transition process 
or to evaluate the SIFT system before accepting it for implementation. 
As a result, numerous modifications to the system were needed to make 
it practical for use after the warning centers received it. 

In 2008, however, to revise the transition plan and accelerate the 
system's implementation, NOAA's Tsunami Program manager collaborated 
with staff from PMEL and the warning centers and established a SIFT 
transition team with more involvement from the warning centers. 
According to NOAA officials, the transition team completed a revised 
plan in June 2009 that meets the requirements of NOAA's research 
transition policy and implementation procedures, such as defining 
system requirements and performance measures. Additionally, NOAA 
officials performed a checkpoint review of the transition. As a result 
of these changes, according to officials at PMEL and the warning 
centers, communication between them has improved, and NOAA is closer 
to implementing the SIFT system in the centers. 

Moreover, NOAA has not complied with the Tsunami Warning and Education 
Act's requirement that it, through the National Weather Service, 
develop and execute a plan for the transfer of technology from ongoing 
research into the tsunami forecasting and warning program.[Footnote 
27] Although NOAA has developed a specific transition plan for the 
SIFT system, this transition plan does not meet the act's requirement 
because it does not generally address how other research should 
undergo transition. In response, NOAA officials told us they believe 
that NOAA's general transition policy and implementation procedures, 
along with individual transition plans for selected projects,[Footnote 
28] satisfy its planning obligations under the act. But when we first 
asked program officials about the required tsunami research transition 
plan, they told us they did not have one and that they were unfamiliar 
with the act's requirement. Because NOAA's existing policy and 
procedures, which predated the act, do not provide a plan specifically 
for the transfer of tsunami research into the Tsunami Program, and 
because NOAA has not created a separate plan for the transfer of 
tsunami research, we believe that NOAA has not fully complied with the 
act's requirement for a transition plan for tsunami research. 

Conclusions: 

NOAA and its partners have taken important initial steps toward 
implementing effective, results-oriented management by creating 
strategic plans for the Tsunami Program and NTHMP. By following the 
key practices we and leading organizations have identified for 
developing strategic plans and generally including the critical 
components of effective plans--such as long-term goals and strategies 
to achieve them--NOAA has established a solid foundation for managing 
its programs. Nevertheless, because NOAA has not identified strategies 
or performance measures for some goals, it is not clear how the agency 
intends to pursue these goals or how it will measure its progress 
toward achieving them. In this regard, identifying barriers to 
participation, as we previously recommended, and developing strategies 
for achieving the goal of expanding TsunamiReady program participation 
could help address the low participation rate in this community 
preparedness program. In addition, both the warning and mitigation 
components of NOAA's programs can benefit greatly from the results of 
tsunami-related research. As demonstrated by the transition of SIFT 
from research to application in the warning centers, however, the 
failure to plan properly can result in the need for multiple 
modifications to a system to make it usable, leading to delays in 
implementing a promising new technology. Until NOAA develops a plan 
specifically for the transition of technology from research to 
application in the Tsunami Program, it will not be in compliance with 
the requirement of the Tsunami Warning and Education Act, and the 
potential persists for delays like those experienced in the SIFT 
transition. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To improve national tsunami preparedness and ensure that NOAA fulfills 
its responsibilities under the Tsunami Warning and Education Act, we 
are recommending that the Secretary of Commerce direct the 
Administrator of NOAA to take the following two actions: 

* Revise the Tsunami Program's and NTHMP's strategic plans to ensure 
that all the components are fully developed, in particular, that they 
include effective strategies and performance measures for all goals, 
including those for the TsunamiReady program. 

* Develop a transition plan for tsunami research, as required by the 
Tsunami Warning and Education Act. The plan should incorporate lessons 
learned from the transition of the SIFT tsunami forecasting system. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a copy of our draft report to the Department of Commerce 
for review and comment. The Department provided us NOAA's comments on 
the draft report, in which NOAA said that the report captures and 
addresses the major elements of the Tsunami Program and acknowledges 
the involvement and roles of all levels of government. NOAA also 
agreed with our two recommendations. NOAA said that it will initiate 
revisions to the Tsunami Program's and NTHMP's strategic plans upon 
receipt of the National Academy of Sciences' report on the Tsunami 
Program expected in the summer of 2010. NOAA also said that it will 
initiate the development of a Tsunami Program transition plan for 
tsunami research in the summer of 2010 in coordination with its 
research partners. NOAA also provided technical comments that we 
incorporated into the report as appropriate. NOAA's comments are 
presented in appendix I. 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 
committees, Secretary of Commerce, Administrator of NOAA, and other 
interested parties. In addition, this report will be available at no 
charge on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, 
please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov. Contact points 
for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be 
found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix II. 

Signed by: 

Anu K. Mittal: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Commerce: 

United States Department Of Commerce: 
The Secretary of Commerce: 
Washington, D.C. 20230: 
	
April 15, 2010: 

Ms. Anu K. Mittal: 
Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Mittal: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government 
Accountability Office's draft report entitled "U.S. Tsunami 
Preparedness: NOAA Has Expanded Its Tsunami Programs, but Improved 
Planning Could Enhance Effectiveness" (GA0-10-490). On behalf of the 
Department of Commerce, I have enclosed the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration's programmatic comments on the draft report. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Gary Locke: 

Enclosure: 

[End of letter] 

Department of Commerce: 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Comments on the Draft 
GAO Report Entitled: 

"U.S. Tsunami Preparedness: NOAA Has Expanded Its Tsunami
Programs, but Improved Planning Could Enhance Effectiveness" 
(GAO-10-490, April 2010): 

General Comments: 

The Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA) appreciate the opportunity to review this 
Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on tsunami preparedness. 
The report captures and addresses the major elements of the tsunami 
program and acknowledges the involvement and roles of all levels of 
government. 

NOAA Response to GAO Recommendations: 

The draft GAO report states, "To improve national preparedness and 
ensure that NOAA fulfills its responsibilities under the Tsunami 
Warning and Education Act, we are recommending that the Secretary of 
Commerce direct NOAA to take the following two actions:" 

Recommendation 1: "Revise the Tsunami Program's and National Tsunami 
Hazard Mitigation Program's (NTHMP) strategic plans to ensure that all 
of the components are fully developed, in particular, that they 
include effective strategies and performance measures for all goals, 
including those for the TsunamiReady program." 

NOAA Response: NOAA agrees with this recommendation. NOAA will 
initiate the revisions to the Tsunami Program and NTHMP's strategic 
plans upon receipt of the National Academy of Sciences Report on the 
Tsunami Program. This report is expected in the summer of 2010 and 
will provide additional recommendations for NOAA's Tsunami Program. 
These recommendations will be addressed within the revised Tsunami 
Program and NTHMP strategic plans. 

Recommendation 2: "Develop a transition plan for tsunami research, as 
required by the Tsunami Warning and Education Act. The plan should 
incorporate lessons learned from the transition of the SIFT [Short-
term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis] tsunami forecasting system." 

NOAA Response: NOAA agrees with this recommendation. NOAA will 
initiate the development of a Tsunami Program Transition Plan for 
Tsunami Research in the summer of 2010 in coordination with its 
research partners. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Anu K. Mittal (202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Stephen D. Secrist, Assistant 
Director; Elizabeth R. Beardsley; Ellen W. Chu; Brad C. Dobbins; Wyatt 
R. Hundrup; Katherine Killebrew; Michael J. Meleady; and Katherine M. 
Raheb made key contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] Before this event, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration records, the last tsunami causing significant 
destruction in the United States and its territories took place at 
Skagway, Alaska, in November 1994, where a landslide and associated 
wave killed one person and caused $25 million in damage. 

[2] The two centers are the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, 
located in Palmer, Alaska, and the Richard H. Hagemeyer Pacific 
Tsunami Warning Center, located in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. 

[3] GAO, U.S. Tsunami Preparedness: Federal and State Partners 
Collaborate to Help Communities Reduce Potential Impacts, but 
Significant Challenges Remain, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-519] (Washington2 D.C.: June 5, 
2006). 

[4] Pub. L. No. 109-424. 

[5] GAO, Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government 
Performance and Results Act, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-96-118] (Washington, D.C.: June 
1996). 

[6] GAO, Agencies' Strategic Plans under GPRA: Key Questions to 
Facilitate Congressional Review, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-10.l.16] (Washington, D.C.: May 
1997), and Managing for Results: Critical Issues for Improving Federal 
Agencies' Strategic Plans, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-97-180] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 
16, 1997). 

[7] Landslides, volcanic activity, and meteor strikes are other known, 
but less common, tsunami sources. 

[8] The International Tsunami Information Center was established in 
1965 by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United 
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and is 
funded primarily by NOAA. The center maintains and develops 
relationships with scientific research and academic organizations, 
civil defense agencies, and the general public to mitigate the hazards 
associated with tsunamis by improving tsunami preparedness for all 
Pacific Ocean nations and helping to develop and implement tsunami 
warning and mitigation systems globally. 

[9] The National Data Buoy Center designs, develops, operates, and 
maintains a network of data-collecting buoys and coastal monitoring 
stations. 

[10] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-96-118]. 

[11] Inundation maps identify the expected extent of flooding from 
tsunamis in specific coastal areas. 

[12] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-96-118]. 

[13] National Science and Technology Council, Tsunami Risk Reduction 
for the United States: A Framework for Action (Washington, D.C.: 2005). 

[14] The center serves as the operational headquarters for the Pacific 
Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System, which is part of an 
international cooperative effort by tsunami-vulnerable countries from 
across the Pacific ocean, working together to mitigate the potentially 
destructive impacts of a tsunami. 

[15] The center's responsibilities in the Indian Ocean and Caribbean 
Sea are temporary, until regional tsunami warning centers are 
developed for these areas. 

[16] The U.S. Geological Survey also provides data from 15 regional 
seismic networks that are part of the Advanced National Seismic 
System. In addition, it operates the National Earthquake Information 
Center in Golden, Colorado, which has been expanded to operate 24 
hours a day, 7 days a week, to monitor seismic data and advise the 
tsunami warning centers about whether a seismic event could generate a 
tsunami. 

[17] According to agency officials, NOAA also configured 163 water- 
level stations in the National Water Level Observation Network to 
support tsunami monitoring. The National Water Level Observation 
Network is a component of the National Water Level Program, which is 
managed by NOAA's National Ocean Services through its Center for 
Operational Oceanographic Products and Services. 

[18] The model was originally developed by the West Coast/Alaska 
Tsunami Warning Center in 1996 and updated in 2002. 

[19] NOAA decided to initially focus on developing site-specific 
tsunami inundation models for 75 at-risk areas on the basis of 
population, data availability and quality, and other considerations. 
As of January 2010, NOAA had completed models for 43 of the selected 
locations, with plans to develop models for the 32 remaining locations 
by 2013. 

[20] This improved warning capability was recently demonstrated by the 
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in its response to the September 2009 
American Samoa tsunami, when it issued its initial warning bulletin 
within 16 minutes of the tsunami-generating earthquake. Similarly, the 
warning center issued its initial warning bulletin within 12 minutes 
of the February 2010 Chilean tsunami. NOAA's 2009 fiscal year goal is 
to issue an initial message within 20 minutes of such seismic events. 

[21] NOAA defines a DART buoy outage as a buoy out of service, with 
data reporting unavailable for more than 12 hours. 

[22] This measure combines average data availability from the seismic, 
water-level, and DART buoy networks. In fiscal year 2009, data 
availability from these networks averaged 85 percent. 

[23] The coordinating committee comprises two representatives each 
from NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency, along with two representatives from each of the 
following states or territories: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, 
Washington, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The remaining 
states and territories are grouped together for representation, with 
two representatives each for the following regions: U.S. East Coast 
states, U.S. Gulf Coast states, and Pacific Islands. 

[24] The program's goal is to recognize 10 new TsunamiReady 
communities per year and to reach a total of 105 recognized 
communities by 2013. In fiscal year 2009, 11 new communities were 
recognized in Alaska, California, Washington, the Northern Mariana 
Islands, and Puerto Rico. For purposes of the TsunamiReady program, a 
"community" can be a county, town, borough, small organized rural 
population, military base, university, corporate complex, tribal 
nation, or village. 

[25] While NOAA has generally assessed the relative tsunami hazard 
level for each coastal region, the list of at-risk communities is not 
further prioritized by relative risk because the agency currently 
lacks the information needed to conduct a comprehensive tsunami risk 
assessment for each coastal community. 

[26] NOAA first issued its Policy on Transition of Research to 
Application (NAO 216-105) in May 2005 and the corresponding 
implementation procedures in December 2005; the policy and 
implementation procedures were updated in July 2008 and November 2008, 
respectively. 

[27] The Tsunami Warning and Education Act does not impose a deadline 
for NOAA to create the plan. By December 2009, however, NOAA was 
required to submit a report to Congress on how technology is being 
transferred into the Tsunami Program. The report discusses various 
research transitions but not the required plan. 

[28] Since the passage of the Tsunami Warning and Education Act in 
December 2006, NOAA has prepared a transition plan for only one 
tsunami project--the SIFT system as described above. 

[End of section] 

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