Carnation mayor confronts Seattle City Council over false evacuation alarms for Tolt Dam

SEATTLE — The City of Carnation spoke out about the false Tolt Dam evacuation alarms at Wednesday’s Seattle City Council meeting.

Over the past few years, Carnation has had a series of false alarms that told residents the Tolt Dam was breaking. If the dam actually broke, the city would flood and people could die.

The mayor of Carnation says he was traumatized by the inadequate alarm system and that a solution needs to be found soon.

“We’ve been doing this for 3 years, so we would’ve hoped that the city council and SPU would be more responsive to us,” said Mayor Jim Ribail. “We did come down last week to try to set a date to get together with them. There was no date that was soon, so that’s why we came down here today to make sure that they heard us in the public comment.”

Seattle Public Utilities released a statement regarding the false alarms last month.

“Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is currently in active discussions with Carnation officials and our emergency partners on how best to meet community expectations,” said SPU. “Based on feedback from residents on the new Warning System, we are making minor adjustments and anticipate decommissioning the old system and fully transitioning to the new system, which will provide better reliability and resiliency, by October.”

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