Pacific Tsunami Museum

Address: 130 Kamehameha Ave., Hilo, Hawaii 96720

Hours: Open Daily 10am to 4pm, Closed on & Monday

Location: Downtown Hilo, Big Island, Hawaii

Opened: 1993

Parking: Guest Parking

Phone: 808-935-0926

Directions: Located in the heart of historic downtown Hilo.

Official Website: Pacific Tsunami Museum

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Hilo is famous for its serene beauty, adventurous sites, and historical and cultural sites. The Tsunami Museum is one of the informative sites that share the history of Hilo with visitors. It is one of its kind museums in Hilo dedicated to educating people about tsunamis and the destruction they cause. The idea is to educate people about the dark realities of life as we also come across dark days in our life as often as we come across good times. There are so many places dedicated to soothing your soul in Hilo, but this museum is one of the kinds which aims to share the dark history with visitors with the aim to prepare them for any worst scenario in their lives. The museum generally shares the information about tsunamis in general but particularly focuses on the tsunamis that hit Hilo Hawaii on April 1, 1946, and May 23, 1960. The museum shares all the relevant details interestingly and engagingly to educate the visitors about the capabilities of a tsunami. The aim behind constructing this museum is to educate people so that no one will ever die of a tsunami along with paying tribute to those who lost their precious lives in tsunamis that hit Hilo and is a living memorial for departed souls. 

On the entrance, there is a watermark on the glass door which indicates the level of water in Hilo during the tsunami. Upon entrance, the visitors are shown a scale model of Hilo which showed the real geography of Hilo before the tsunami hit it brutally in 1946. Visitors are guided about the early warning systems and evacuation routes through an appointed docent and a 20 minutes documentary video which is shown in the museum (in a vault basically of the bank upon which this museum is built). The first exhibit section shares the drastic history of Hilo due to volcano eruptions, earthquakes, and even man-made disasters like the Hilo massacre to highlight the dark history of Hilo. 

Some other exhibits show a mix of interactive and informational displays of the worldwide tsunamis. To educate visitors on how tsunamis can affect the world, the news clippings relating to tsunamis are shared along with photos depicting the destruction they caused and text descriptions of tsunamis depicting human emotions are shown. The special focus in this museum is the tsunamis that hit Hilo. Fascinating stories of survivors are shared here to share their experiences. The most famous story is of a teacher who was taken by the wave at the sea and was rescued by a man whom she married later. There you can also find the artifacts of tsunami-warning systems. There is also a wave machine placed in the main hall which helps you to recreate a tsunami of your own. Visitors can put pressure on the stick of a wave machine and create a wave that knocks off replica buildings to view the destructions caused by a tsunami. The purpose of this wave machine and all the exhibits is to prepare visitors for a possible tsunami.

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