, the pace of events was so frenetic that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach , Hawaii -- which tracks earthquakes and tsunamis for countries throughout the Pacific Ocean , Indian Ocean and Caribbean Sea -- had already been alerted to the looming disaster by the time the seismometer evidence came in . `` The National Weather Service director in American Samoa called the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center a few seconds before the alarms went off here , so we had an advanced warning and we were already sitting at the computer , looking at the data in real time , '' said Brian Shiro , a Pacific warning center geophysicist . It can take 30 seconds to five minutes for information from earthquake sensors placed strategically around the globe to roll into the two U.S. tsunami warning centers . When there 's a clear tsunami threat , the center 's operation room -- built to accommodate the two workers on duty -- becomes flooded with people all jostling to offer assistance . The phone lines consistently ring and `` people are yelling at each other so everyone will be on the same page , and you do
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- When an earthquake threatens to turn part of an ocean into fast-moving walls of water , tsunami warning scientists can do nothing for the first five minutes except wait for information . But within the next five minutes , they have to decide whether to issue a warning of danger . Brian Shiro has been a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for four years . And you thought your job was high pressure . `` If we see a set of circumstances and it fits into our criteria for -LSB- the -RSB- event , we just follow that criteria because we do n't have much time to think . There is n't a lot of time for decision-making , '' said Paul Whitmore , director of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center . `` Weighing back there -LSB- in your mind -RSB- also is the effect of your decision . If the effect of your decision is going to evacuate the entire West Coast waterfront , you do n't want to take that lightly , '' he said . With Tuesday 's tragic tsunami that engulfed villages in Samoa and American Samoa