"It's not one that's going to cause mass devastation. But it will cause coastal flooding and it will cause damage and it does put lives at risk if people don't move to high ground," an oceanography professor says.

Cars crowded evacuation routes in Honolulu after a massive earthquake across the Pacific spread fears of a devastating tsunami.

After that disaster, in 1949 the United States established the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC), the first of its kind, to provide early warnings to populations around the Pacific. It was a visionary step, recognizing that natural hazards like tsunamis don’t respect borders — and that scientific knowledge could mitigate risk.