Federal funding worth $4.8 million is being sent to the University of Hawaii’s National Disaster Preparedness Center.

Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka announced the funding, which comes through a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Training Program for the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium.

The center also received $4.8 million last year.

Inouye said that as an isolated state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii needs to be prepared to protect citizens from natural disasters.