A killer tsunami has devastated Japan and is now threatening Hawaii and the Pacific Coast of the US. But just last month, Republicans voted to gut funding for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center—a cut that would cripple the National Weather Service's ability to issue warnings about such disasters. In February, the union representing the National Weather Service warned that the Republican cuts could place the residents of Hawaii in mortal danger. "People could die... It could be serious," Barry Hirshorn, Pacific region chairman of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, told Hawaii's Star Advertiser. The House budget includes a 28 percent cut to the National Weather Service that would result in staffing cutbacks to Hawaii's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which monitors potential tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.
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