Pacific Tsunami Museum, Tsunami museum in Hilo, United States

The Pacific Tsunami Museum is an educational facility in Hilo housed in a former bank building that focuses on tsunami science, historical events, and survivor accounts. The exhibits explain how tsunamis form and the impact they have on people and communities.

The museum was born from a collection of survivor stories gathered in 1988 and found its permanent home through a building donation in 1997. These two milestones allowed the stories and lessons of tsunamis to become permanently accessible to the public.

The museum preserves through photographs, artifacts, and personal accounts the experiences of communities shaped by tsunami events. These collections show how such disasters have touched the lives and memories of local people.

The museum occupies the former First Hawaiian Bank Kamehameha Branch at 130 Kamehameha Avenue, at the corner of Kamehameha and Kalakaua in downtown Hilo. Exhibits are on the ground floor of the roughly 5,300-square-foot building; the basement holds storage and the upper floor offices and archives. The museum reopened with permanent hours in March 2023 after pandemic closures, but in November 2024 the board laid off its ten-person staff and suspended operations, with former employees volunteering to keep it open.

The building features a photovoltaic system that makes it energy-efficient and demonstrates green practices at the site. Additionally, the museum is currently developing an exhibit about the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption, examining recent events and their impacts.