American Samoa will officially be recognized as a Tsunami Ready community, with a ceremony set for a day before the anniversary of the 2009 tsunami.
The devastating tsunami killed 34 people in the territory,
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather office will host the ceremony at Utulei Beach.
It says many contributed to American Samoa becoming tsunami ready, including the Army Corps of Engineers, which spent 500,000 US dollars to conduct an assessment of the tsunami risk, the U.S. Coast Guard and other parts of NOAA.
The tsunami ready program is administered by the National Weather Service as a way to increase and strengthen the ability of communities to prepare for, mitigate, and recover from natural hazards.
