"Protecting human life and property from natural disaster requires ... the willingness to invest resources to prepare for a threat that is largely unseen and unpredictable until the last moment, when a monstrous wave actually strikes," Inouye said.

Tsunami experts appearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation yesterday described a system for addressing the tsunami risk that has three parts. The first is the technology to detect the potentially damaging waves. The second is the ability to warn people in areas that are endangered. And the third is to ensure that people know to evacuate.

In the Dec. 26 event, most affected areas had none of the three. NOAA officials say the Indian Ocean, and indeed all of the world's oceans except the Pacific, lack automated tide gauges and seafloor detectors that would have confirmed a wave had been generated. Many of the regions have no system in place for alerting the public, and most coastal communities did not know how to respond, even as they saw the ocean retreating in advance of the incoming waves.

Honolulu communications consultant Doug Carlson, in testimony sent to the Senate committee, said that tsunami warning experts, once they realized a dangerous tsunami had been generated by earthquakes off Sumatra, could have used a simple warning system that's already in place: the major international media.

"The scientists resorted to telephoning their colleagues in south Asia, with virtually no success. What they did not do was telephone the major international news media, such as the Associated Press, CNN, the BBC, Reuters or any other news organization with world-wide communications capabilities," Carlson said.

"The media can be an efficient way to send warnings to threatened populations when time is of the essence, and NOAA would do well to integrate them into its crisis communications planning," he said.

But warning people may not be enough if they don't know how to respond to the warning, said John Marburger III, director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy. He referred to what he called a "ready public," which he said must be "able to respond in an efficient and timely manner through preparedness education."

He said an international effort to improve tsunami warnings and public training is already under way through the International Group on Global Observations. India, Indonesia and Thailand, all hard-hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami, are involved.

Honolulu's Eileen Shea of the East-West Center called on the committee to consider the larger picture and plan for other, more common natural disasters.

"As we take steps to reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities to high-impact, low-frequency events such as future tsunamis, we should also be strengthening their resilience in the face of other, more frequent and often devastating natural disasters including weather and climate-related extreme events such as hurricanes and typhoons, floods, landslides, drought and high wind and wave events," Shea said.

"If we focus only on the tsunami hazard itself, I fear that we will be like the proverbial general planning for the past war," she said. "I believe that we can work together to build disaster-resilient coastal communities in the United States and around the world."