"We'll be upgrading our seismic systems here because what we're using is 30-year-old technology," Cessaro said. "We want to go digital and that will enable us to use a microwave network. It means modernizing and making our center more robust."

Bush's plan, unveiled yesterday, would quadruple the size of the warning network in the Pacific and establish similar safeguards for Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf coasts by mid-2007, officials of the White House science office said. Operating costs would reach about $24.5 million a year.

"The funding will give us a brand-new capability that has never been achieved, which will be a quantum leap in the improvement of the science," said Jeff LaDouce, the Honolulu-based director of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service in the Pacific region.

Currently, five scientists share on-call duty at the center. All but one live in houses on the property, and must race to the center on bicycle when pagers alert them to an earthquake or other event.

"Increased manning at tsunami warning centers will provide quicker response in event of a tsunami and will provide better protection for Hawai'i," LaDouce said.

The money also will go toward completion of a buoy network that detects tsunamis in the deep ocean. Three years ago, six of the deep-ocean sensors, which transmit signals to buoys on the surface, were placed around the Pacific.

More than 20 new buoys will be installed in seismically active regions along the Pacific plate, known as the "Ring of Fire," under the new plan.

The buoys will help scientists assess whether a dangerous tsunami exists, forecast the contours of a wave and detect deep-ocean tsunami waves, which are very small, LaDouce said.

The federal plan allots $24 million to NOAA and $13.5 million to the U.S. Geological Survey. The two agencies oversee tsunami detection and warning protocol. Congress has yet to approve the proposal.

Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, said he was pleased that the Bush administration is helping to expand and modernize the warning system.

"The Pacific Ocean is the most prone to tsunamis, and our state has suffered great losses in the past," Inouye said.

The warning system would "provide the U.S. nearly 100 percent detection capability for the coasts, allowing an alert within minutes and, in some cases, within seconds of a tsunami's formation," John Marburger, Bush's science adviser, told a news conference.

The plan builds on the work of Inouye and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who visited the 'Ewa Beach center on Tuesday. In 1994, they directed NOAA to create the first national initiative to detect tsunami hazards in the Pacific, the center of 85 percent of the world's tsunami activity.

In 1946, a Pacific-wide tsunami was generated by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake near Unimak Island in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain.

That tsunami destroyed Hilo's waterfront and killed 159 people, including children attending school at Laupahoehoe Point on the Big Island.

In 1964, more than 120 people died when a magnitude 8.4 quake in Alaska generated tsunamis that caused damage in Hawai'i and elsewhere.