Hawaii Museum on Tsunami Including Japan’s 2011 Disaster at Risk of Closure

By Keiichi Nakane / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

2:00 JST, March 12, 2026

HILO, Hawaii — The only museum in the United States that specializes in collecting and exhibiting tsunami-related materials and documents is in danger of closing.

The Pacific Tsunami Museum (PTM) on Hawaii Island highlights the threat of tsunami around the world and displays debris that reached the shore of Hawaii Island following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

However, it has been 28 years since the museum opened, and its visitor numbers have continued to drop. Due to rising maintenance costs, the museum is calling for people to visit the museum and donate in order to keep it open.

The PTM is in Hilo, Hawaii Island’s largest city, and overlooks the deep blue Pacific Ocean. The stone-built museum displays photographs and exhibition panels about tsunami that have occurred around the world, including tsunami that have repeatedly hit Hawaii in the past and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

A section featuring the Great East Japan Earthquake displays a road delineator from Japan’s National Route 45 that reached the shores of Hawaii Island all the way from Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, about 6,300 kilometers away.

Tom Forbes, a 73-year-old volunteer guide, said he wants to keep talking about the danger of tsunami so that one day not a single life is lost to tsunami.

The museum opened at its current location in 1998. It was founded by a private organization that was created by a University of Hawaii researcher and tsunami survivors in response to a decline in the number of people who have personally experienced tsunami. They took possession of a bank branch building and began operating out of it. The same bank building was damaged in 1946 when it was flooded with water about a meter deep during a tsunami that killed 159 people in Hawaii.

The museum also focused on working with disaster-hit areas in the Tohoku region after the Great East Japan Earthquake and has hosted visits from junior high schools in Iwate Prefecture.

When the museum first opened, a stream of local visitors and tourists consistently came. However, as public interest in tsunami has recently faded away, fewer residents visit the museum. Tourists also temporarily stopped visiting during the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of visitors has remained at roughly 5,000 annually since 2020, less than 30% of pre-pandemic levels.

Meanwhile, the 96-year-old building constantly has leaks and its substantial maintenance costs have become a burden. Financial difficulties forced the museum to lay off 10 employees in November 2024. It began seeking donations in 2025 and raised a total of $1.2 million (about ¥190 million), but surging prices have led to ballooning maintenance and renovation costs, with the roof repairs alone costing $250,000.

The museum charges a $15 admission fee per person and sells merchandise including T-shirts. However, the museum can only open on weekends due to the shortage of staff. Museum Executive Director Cindi Preller, 61, emphasized that funding is essential for the museum to stay open. She added that the museum staff wanted Japanese people, who know the dangers of tsunami, to visit the museum as well.