Tsunami warnings that could affect the Washington coast may now take longer to reach the public.

Alaska State Seismologist Michael West told KIRO Newsradio Tuesday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has ended its contract with the Alaska Earthquake Center .

“I don’t want to for one moment suggest that warnings are going dark,” West said. “The National Tsunami Warning Center is run by outstanding people working with a lot of data from different places.”

But West said the data gathered by instruments in the Aleutian Islands, which he calls a “breeding ground for tsunamis in the Pacific,” will be lost, and that will slow down the information coming from there to Washington.

“We’re talking about a delay of, you know, a couple of minutes on a tsunami that ta

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