Federal officials told lawmakers yesterday that while the country is well-prepared for a tsunami, the government needs to be "vigilant" about educating at-risk communities and ensuring that information is accessible.

Residents "really need to know to move and not wait for the warning," said Mary Glackin, the deputy undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"What I think we can't afford as a nation is complacency. That's the danger with events that are infrequent like tsunamis," she told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security. "I think there's a real challenge in keeping local communities ready to respond to this."

Subcommittee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) held the hearing to explore the "lessons learned" from the tsunami generated by Japan's 8.9-magnitude earthquake on March 11. The disaster has incited new focus on NOAA's warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska, which are responsible for keeping track of any waves that could hit the country's coastlines.

Last month, NOAA started the bidding process for a new IT infrastructure at the two centers, which currently use different hardware and software. That results in higher costs and prevents the centers from becoming backup sites for each other, according to the agency's request for information solicitation. Both centers also need better systems to process the amount of data that has steadily increased since the 2004 Indonesian earthquake.

But at yesterday's hearing, officials from NOAA, the Department of Interior and the Federal Emergency Management Agency appeared confident that the government could handle a tsunami. The agencies cooperate well, they said, and Congress has so far funded many necessary technologies.

But the conversation repeatedly returned to the need for more educational outreach, especially in coastal areas that see many tourists.

John Madden, director of Alaska's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said that during the recent tsunami threat from the Japanese earthquake, the Alaska warning center's website and email were sometimes overloaded. Communities were kept abreast of the danger through a state official who sat at the center with a cell phone and radio.

"All the science, all the computers, all the warning systems are useless if the affected community does not know how to respond to the threat," Madden said. "We cannot assume that Alaskans will have hours' notice to prepare and take action."

Glackin said NOAA plans to begin a nationwide "risk assessment" to determine the most vulnerable areas. The agency also hopes to complete more detailed mapping of inland areas where local events -- such as a landslide -- could cause water to well up to 200 feet.

But it is still unclear how the agency's plans will be affected by Congress' long-term spending deal. Glackin declined to "prematurely" specify cuts but she said "tough choices" would have to made.

Still, one of the agency's main priorities will be to fix nine "deep-ocean assessment and reporting of tsunamis" buoys, which have been left disabled while Congress has debated a long-term budget. The DART buoys allow scientists to measure sea levels and warn local officials if there is a rising wave. NOAA has 39 buoys, some of which are redundant, Glackin said.

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii) -- who is not on the oversight committee but sat in on the hearing -- pointed out that one of the inoperable DART buoys is located near Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where an earthquake in 1946 caused a tsunami that killed 159 Hawaiian residents.

William Leith, the acting associate director for natural hazards at the U.S. Geological Survey, said something similar could be on the horizon, making preparations vitally important.

"The Earth is quite unpredictable," Leith said. "What I would say as an Earth scientist is that stress is building up and we can expect another tsunami coming from Alaska."