The 1994 event happened almost 11 years ago and is for most a distant memory. The Indian Ocean tsunami is fresh on everyone's mind, but will that still be the case 10 or more years from now, especially if there has been another false alarm in the meantime? Human nature is to put such tragedies behind us, especially when the inevitable next disaster happens in the interim.

The recent tsunami has shown just how powerful and deadly these events can be. I can only hope that will be incentive for establishing better tsunami detection and warning systems around the world, along with all the supporting infrastructure necessary to make it useful. Look to the well developed plans and facilities in places like Hawaii and Japan and imagine the challenge of creating similar evacuation schemes for the US east coast. It'll take a lot of work (and money) to put together all the parts to make a workable plan. In fact, the actual tsunami detection and reporting systems might be one of the least expensive parts of the overall operation.