Nine seismic stations in Alaska will go down this month, leaving tsunami forecasters without important data to determine whether an earthquake will send a destructive wave toward the West Coast.
The stations relied on a federal grant that expired last year; This fall, the Trump administration declined to renew it. Data from the stations helps researchers determine the magnitude and shape of earthquakes along the Alaska Subduction Zone, a fault that can produce some of the most powerful earthquakes in the world and put California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii at risk.
The loss of the stations could lead Alaska coastal communities to receive delayed warning of an impending tsunami, according to Michael West, director of the Alaska Earthquake Center. And communities further away, such as in Washington state, could get a less accurate forecast.
“In pure statistics, the last internal tsunami came from Alaska, and the next one probably will,” he said.
It’s the latest blow to the U.S. tsunami warning system, which was already struggling with disinvestment and understaffing. Researchers said they are concerned that the network is beginning to fall apart.
“All elements of the tsunami warning system are receding,” West said. “There is a complex problem.”
The United States has two tsunami warning centers (one in Palmer, Alaska, and the other in Honolulu) that operate 24 hours a day making predictions that help emergency managers determine whether coastal evacuations are necessary after an earthquake. Historically, data from Alaska’s seismic stations have fed into the centers.
Both centers are already short-staffed. Of the 20 full-time positions in central Alaska, only 11 are currently filled, according to Tom Fahy, union legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. In Hawaii, four of the 16 positions are open. (Both locations are in the process of hiring scientists, Fahy said.)
Additionally, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has reduced funding for the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, which funds most states’ tsunami risk reduction work. The agency provided $4 million in 2025, far less than the $6 million it has offered historically.
“He’s on life support,” West said of the program.
On top of that, NOAA fired the National Weather Service’s tsunami program director, Corina Allen, as part of the Trump administration’s layoff of probationary workers in February, according to Harold Tobin, the Washington state seismologist. Allen, who had recently started at the agency, declined to comment through a spokesperson for his new employer, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
These recent cuts have come amid the Trump administration’s broader efforts to cut federal spending on climate science and research, among other areas. NOAA laid off hundreds of workers in February, scaled back weather balloon launches and halted research into the costs of climate and weather disasters, among other cuts.
Most of the seismic stations being closed in Alaska are in remote areas of the Aleutian Islands, West said. The range extends westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward Russia, tracing an underwater subduction zone. KHNS, an Alaska public radio station, was the first to report the news that the stations would be taken offline.
A NOAA grant of about $300,000 each year had supported the stations. The Alaska Earthquake Center applied for a new grant through 2028 but was denied, according to an email between West and NOAA staff that was seen by NBC News.
NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster said the federal agency stopped providing the money in 2024 under the Biden administration. In the spring, the University of Alaska Fairbanks provided funding to sustain the program for another year, believing the federal government would eventually cover the cost, said Uma Bhatt, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and associate director of the research institute that administered the grant. But the new funds never materialized.
“The loss of these observations does not prevent the Tsunami Warning Center from carrying out its mission,” Doster said. “The AEC [Alaska Earthquake Center] is one of many partners supporting National Weather Service tsunami operations, and the NWS continues to utilize many mechanisms to ensure seismic data collection throughout the state of Alaska.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
West said the Alaska Earthquake Center provides most of the data used for tsunami warnings in the state. The grant that supported the nine seismic stations also funded a data source with information from other sensors at the center, according to West. National tsunami warning centers will no longer have direct access to information.
West said the stations in the Aleutian Islands cover a huge geographic range.
“There’s nothing else around,” he said. “It’s not like there’s another instrument 20 miles away. There’s no path.”
The plan is to abandon the stations at the end of this month and leave their equipment in place, West added.
Tobin, in Washington state, said he is concerned that closures “may delay or degrade the quality of tsunami warnings.”
“This is a region that is poorly monitored. We need to have a stethoscope in this region,” he said, adding, “These programs take a backseat until a big, terrible event occurs.”
The Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone is one of the most active faults in the world and has produced significant tsunamis in the past. In 1964, a tsunami produced by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake killed 124 people, including 13 in California and five in Oregon, according to NOAA. Most of the deaths in California occurred in Crescent City, where a 21-foot wave destroyed 29 city blocks, according to the city website.
Tsunami experts said the stations in the Aleutian Islands are critical to quickly understanding nearby earthquakes. The closer an earthquake is to a sensor, the lower the uncertainty about a subsequent tsunami.
NOAA’s tsunami warning centers aim to issue an initial forecast within five minutes, West said, which is critical for local communities. (A strong earthquake in the Aleutian Islands could send an initial wave to nearby Alaska communities within minutes.) The only data available quickly enough to inform those initial forecasts comes from seismic signals (rather than tide gauges or pressure sensors attached to buoys).
The warning centers then issue a more specific forecast of wave heights after about 40 minutes. Daniel Eungard, tsunami program leader for the Washington Geological Survey, said not having Alaska’s sensors would create more uncertainty about expected wave heights, complicating decisions about whether to evacuate along the Washington coast.
“We try not to over-evacuate,” he said, adding that it costs time, money and confidence if warnings prove unnecessary.
Over the past year, the national tsunami warning centers have been very busy. A magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Cape Mendocino, California, triggered tsunami warnings along the state’s coast in December. In July, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula triggered widespread alert along the US west coast. The peninsula is just west of the Aleutian Islands.
NOAA helped build many of the seismological stations that have been part of the Alaska Earthquake Center network. But West said the agency has diminished its support over the past two decades; Nine stations built by NOAA were decommissioned in 2013.
“It’s now or never to decide whether NOAA is part of this or not,” he said. “What I really want to do is create a debate about anti-tsunami efforts in the United States and not have that triggered by the next devastating tsunami.”
