CARNATION, Wash. — City leaders in Carnation say they are planning to sue the City of Seattle and Seattle Public Utilities after an alarm warning residents to evacuate sounded when it shouldn’t have. Seattle Public Utilities operates the Tolt River Dam, which holds back a reservoir 16 miles upstream of the City of Carnation.
In lieu of answers, the Carnation city leaders are taking action.
“There is a fundamental problem here, which is lack of capacity and/or willingness to ensure the safety of this community,” said Carnation city manager Ana Cortez.
The community is outraged after yet another alarm sounded warning them that the Tolt River Dam was failing. Audio captured by a resident’s cellphone documents an “all clear” siren that sounded some 26 minutes after the initial “false alarm” sounded Wednesday at 10 a.m.
The Tolt River Dam holds back nearly 58,000 acres of water, which provides as much as 40% of the City of Seattle's drinking water. A failure of the dam would be catastrophic, so a “false alarm” is infuriating.
“Yesterday was the last straw. This can’t happen anymore,” said Carnation resident Morgan Henley. “Carnation won’t exist if this dam fails and it’s not just Carnation, it’s Duvall, it’s all the way to Everett,” he continued.
Seattle Public Utilities says it’s still investigating Wednesday’s false alarm. City leaders say there have been eight similar false alarms over the past four years and only one has been explained.
“That’s the only explanation that we have of one that actually falsely alarmed is that somebody accidentally hit a button on that one incident; other than that, we’re flying blind,” said Carnation Mayor Jim Ribail.
Meanwhile, the City of Carnation is calling for the emergency alert system to be shut down entirely. They want emergency personnel monitoring the site while the City of Seattle creates a new cell phone-based notification system—a fix they now say they will be pursuing in court.
Carnation leaders plan to sue Seattle Public Utilities after latest false alarm
After the eighth false alarm in four years, the city wants the emergency alert system to be shut down entirely.