Hawai'i residents with long memories knew the importance of tsunami preparation long before the devastation caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami hit their television screens, he said.

For younger residents, the images emphasized the importance of disaster preparation here.

"Among natural disasters," Teixeira said, "the tsunami is the No. 1 killer in the Islands, responsible for 222 fatalities in the 20th century."

Teixeira was among officials who spoke at a meeting requested by Rep. Ken Ito, D-48th (Kane'ohe), chairman of the Public Safety and Military Affairs Committee, and Rep. Jerry Chang, D-2nd (Hilo), chairman of the Tourism and Culture Committee, to determine the state's ability to warn and protect the public in the event of a tsunami.

Hawai'i residents who need to evacuate when a tsunami is approaching — generally those within a half-mile of the shoreline — may find there is no room for them in designated shelter areas, Teixeira said.

Retrofitting schools and other public buildings to include large storm-safe areas would help, he said. He estimated about $35 million is needed to fix the problem.

Residents might have more time to evacuate in the event of a tsunami or other disaster if Civil Defense had the money for an around-the-clock alert staff, Teixeira said when committee members asked him about his attempts to include 24-7 funding in previous budget requests.

The cost for additional Civil Defense employees to staff nights and weekends would be $300,000 a year, split evenly between state and federal funding sources, he said.

He told legislators the 9/11 attacks occurred well before business hours in Hawai'i, and because no one was on duty, two hours passed before he was notified.

Teixeira said evacuation maps in state telephone books also could be improved, and the state's siren system needs upgrades and maintenance.

The maps were state-of-the-art in 1991, he said, but technological improvements that allow for better mapping of the ocean floor could be used to develop more accurate maps.

He said $1.25 million a year for the next three years is needed to accelerate the mapping project. He asked legislators to increase siren maintenance funding from $1.28 million every two years to $2 million every two years.

Teixeira said public education projects addressing the proper response to a tsunami are ongoing.

Making people aware that school officials will bus or walk students out of high-risk areas will help to avoid dangerous traffic gridlocks caused by anxious parents, several public officials said.

When a tsunami was forecast in 1986, Teixeira said, Honolulu experienced massive gridlock.

Murray Towill of the Hawaii Hotel and Lodging Association and Rick Egged of the Waikiki Improvement Association said visitors in Waikiki need to know that because traffic is already bottlenecked there, heading for higher ground in Waikiki might mean heading for an upper floor of a concrete-and-steel hotel.

Teixeira and Jeff LaDouce, director of the National Weather Service in the Pacific Region, the agency that oversees the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said a system of high-tech tsunami warning devices between Hawai'i and the Mainland gives Hawai'i three hours' warning for a tsunami generated by an earthquake or other seismic activity in the Aleutian Islands and more than 13 hours for a tsunami that originates in Chile.

The Bush administration has announced a plan to greatly expand that system, adding more buoys that detect seismic activity on the ocean floor and making it possible to predict the size of a tsunami.

But Teixeira said the plan has "blank spots" in the Pacific region.

There is no buoy between Hawai'i and Japan, he said, and there is no buoy off the southern shore of the Big Island, the area most likely to generate a tsunami locally, with potentially devastating effects across the state.

LaDouce said the Bush administration plan calls for more buoys in the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans, and that a buoy between Hawai'i and Japan isn't part of the overhaul. He said Hawai'i will be protected without one.

"With an earthquake in Japan, we'd have data from the surrounding islands," he said.

He said continuous seismic activity off the Big Island could make a detection device in that area impractical.

Teixeira said a buoy off the Big Island could be placed in such a way to avoid interference, and although Hawai'i will have at least a few hours to prepare for a tsunami that originates across the Pacific, big waves caused by volcanic activity or other seismic activity here will require immediate action.

"Basically, if you are on the coast and feel the ground moving, get to higher ground," Teixeira said.

Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist with the University of Hawai'i- Manoa, said that under a certain rare circumstance, a tsunami could originate off the Big Island that would send a giant wave completely across Maui.

He classified that possibility as a "culture-ending event," in line with the potential for a tsunami caused by a giant meteor crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

There is about a 50 percent chance that, within the next 10,000 years, such a giant Big Island tsunami will occur, he said. But the seismic event that would cause it will likely be preceded by months or even years of small and precisely located earthquakes.

"Trust us," he said, "if we come up with something like that, we'll tell you."