The Pacific Tsunami Museum has been a fixture along Hilo’s waterfront for almost three decades. But now, its future is in question.
Cindi Preller, the museum’s executive director, said pandemic woes, coupled with the cost of repairs to their nearly-century-old building, have put the museum in financial straits.
“It’s challenge after challenge. The roof has definitely been leaking and needs fixing,” Preller said. “And it’s more expensive than we’re able to manage.”
The museum has laid off the majority of its staff and slashed its hours. But Preller is far from throwing in the towel. She’s working to drum up enough support to save the museum.
“We are not giving up, no way, no way,” she said.
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The Olson Trust is in the process of giving $200,000 to the museum and has called on other Hilo companies to match their donation. Preller said they need all the help that they can get.
She expects the cost of repairs to their building, a historic bank designed by local architect Charles Dickey, could be in the millions.
Preller is also in the market for an archivist who can preserve and digitize the museum’s collection, including hundreds of oral histories from tsunami survivors.
“I don’t think people have any idea of how extensive the archives are,” said Jeanne Johnston, one of the museum’s co-founders. Johnston estimates she’s conducted about 450 interviews with tsunami survivors, which are now contained in the museum’s archives.
Johnston, who is a survivor of the tsunami that hit Hilo in 1946 and killed 96 people, envisioned the Pacific Tsunami Museum as a way to memorialize those lost in such disasters, as well as a place for people to learn about how to keep themselves safe during a tsunami.
Preller said the collection of oral histories is essential to both of those objectives.
“It’s because of the survivor interviews that we know what those [tsunami] warning signs are… the survivor stories are teaching us exactly what is happening at the time,” Preller said. “I mean, we can’t set up instrumentation to measure what’s going on during the event, because it all gets destroyed.”
Preller added that the museum still has an important role to play in the community, both as a living memorial and as part of the state’s disaster preparedness strategy. Her staff wants to see the museum continue too — they have resumed work on a volunteer basis to open the museum on weekends.
“I have an incredible troop of docents and volunteers, and they just are refusing to completely shutter,” Preller said.
Preller is optimistic the community will heed her calls for help, and she’s hopeful for a grand reopening by November — in time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Halapē tsunami, which killed a Boy Scout troop leader and a local fisherman.
“Right now, the museum needs a lot of things. It really does, but we’re not closing. We are not done,” she said.
