In late September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) informed the Alaska Earthquake Center that it would be cancelling its contract with the Center to collect data on earthquakes that indicate tsunami risk. The Center “for decades has collected data from seismology stations across the state and directly fed the information to NOAA’s National Tsunami Center, in Palmer. If the data indicates an earthquake that could lead to a tsunami, the Tsunami Center sends out a warning message within minutes.”
NOAA told the Center that it no longer has funding available to support the contract work. The Center’s staff expects that its “direct data feeds” to NOAA will cease in mid-November.