Hilo tsunami museum is ‘back full-time’ after financial woes

HILO >> The Pacific Tsunami Museum in downtown Hilo is again open seven days a week with paid staffers after a stormy sail through dire financial straits.

Founded in 1994 with a mission to save lives through education, the museum almost shuttered after laying off its staff in late 2024, with paid staff — including Executive Director Cindi Preller and Associate Director Josh Bell — continuing to serve as unpaid volunteers.

“During our stabilization, we managed to be open for limited hours on weekends,” said Preller, a geologist. Preller added she and the others are “thrilled to be back full time” after the museum fully reopened last month.

The Edmund C. Olson Trust stepped in with a $200,000 grant, and the museum, Preller said, mounted a phased revitalization plan that successfully stabilized operations.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, announced in January a $400,000 federal earmark for the museum “to support outreach and education on tsunami safety” — which fits nicely into the museum’s stated mission to “promote public tsunami education for the people of Hawaii and visitors worldwide, preserve the social and cultural history of Hawaii, and serve as a living memorial to those who lost their lives in past tsunami events.”

On April 1, 1946, April Fool’s Day, an undersea earthquake off the Alaskan coast triggered a massive tsunami that killed 159 people in Hawaii, including 96 in Hilo and 24 in Laupahoehoe. And on May 23, 1960, 61 were killed when a massive tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Chile devastated the Hilo waterfront.

In addition, a tsunami caused a local earthquake on Nov. 27, 2025, which swamped local Boy Scouts camping on the Halape coastline in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park in the middle of the night, killing a scoutmaster and a fisherman.

Part of the revitalization plan was to seat a new, mostly younger, board of directors — including attorney Jeremy Butterfield, the chairman, who was born and raised in Hilo.

“I think this is a great cause,” Butterfield told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. “As a kid, I knew about the museum, and I understand the importance of education about tsunamis.

“We’re in a revitalization phase where we’re working on a lot of things, including our media presence — but also trying to work on revamping our exhibits, redefining our mission. We do have a vision, and we’re working on that.”

“I know COVID was a big problem,” Butterfield continued, referring to the loss of paying visitors from cruise ships that stopped coming to the island during the early phase of the novel coronavirus pandemic. “Reduction in grant funding was also a big problem.”

Since that time, community support took over as gifts from $25 to $25,000 arrived from Hawaii island, across the state, from the mainland and beyond, the museum said in a statement.

“The culmination of that was the realization that we have the funds to reopen, and to pay our staff,” Butterfield said.

According to the museum’s website, paid staffers, in addition to Preller and Bell, include Jazzmin Puuohau, education and training program manager; Angelique Thompson, community engagement coordinator; Tom Forbes and Deb Williams, visitor services managers; Melanie Chun, Spencer Isensee and Tiala Kailianu, visitor services associates.

Volunteers include Dian Mahoney and Mike Weiss, senior docents; and docents Randal McEndree, Bob Mitchel and Nora Waters.

In addition to the Olson Trust and the federal grant, Meadow Gold Dairies pledged a $25,000 commitment along with infrastructural assistance.

In addition to Butterfield, directors include oceanographers Nathan Becker of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the vice chairman, and Walt Dudley, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Hilo — both also serve on the museum’s Scientific Advisory Council; John Cross, a land manager, developer and tea grower with ties to the Olson Trust; secretary Barron Oda, an attorney; treasurer Brandon Beck, director of engineering for Hyatt Vacation Ownership; and Christian Wong, founder and executive director of the Hawaii Science and Technology Museum.

The 3,514-square-foot building at 130 Kamehameha Ave., which was designed by architect C.W. Dickey and built in 1930 as Bishop Bank, was donated to the museum in 1998 by First Hawaiian Bank.

According to county property tax records, the masonry structure and commercially zoned lot of 4,173 square feet it sits on has an assessed value of $2.12 million. Because the museum is nonprofit, the property was assessed only $200 in county tax this year.

The building’s air- conditioning unit wasn’t functional when the museum went to reduced hours and, according to Butterfield, still hasn’t been fixed — and there are other maintenance issues that come with a 96-year-old building.

“We have to address our roof,” Butterfield said. “It’s a deferred maintenance item that needs to be addressed. It’s not leaking and damaging things, as far as we know, but there are concerns about it. I think there’s a membrane up there that we need to have somebody look at and possibly replace, so that doesn’t become an issue.”

Asked what he thought were the best things about the museum, Butterfield replied, “the exhibits that display the devastation of the tsunamis in Hilo” and a video hosted by meteorologist Malika Dudley, which is shown in what was formerly a bank vault.

“It shows what happened to Hilo in ’46 and ’60. I think that’s the biggest asset we have right now,” he said. “We have other sections regarding the Japan tsunami and (the Indian Ocean). I’m not the creative director, by any means, but when you visit Hilo, you want to see what happened to Hilo in the tsunamis, and also Laupahoehoe.”

The museum has launched a reopening membership drive, with the Olson Trust matching every new and renewed membership. Cross is urging residents, businesses and others to “join today.”

“Expanding the museum’s membership and bringing visitors back into the museum will bring new life and revenues to the museum,” he said.

There are membership and donation portals on the museum’s website at tsunami.org.

Kamaaina can still take advantage of free admission to the museum on first Saturdays of the month.

“We have over 700 stories recorded from tsunami survivors, and they all help us to educate our community,” said Preller. “The museum’s own story of survival is still in the making.”