Tolt Dam alarm fails again

You can set your watch to it.

Every Wednesday at noon, people in Carnation hear a piercing siren followed by a recorded message announcing a test of the Tolt Dam warning system.

“At school, we would do evacuation drills,” said Zeb Panek, who grew up in Carnation.

The Tolt Dam is 16 miles upriver.

If it fails, people must get out quickly, as the town could be under 30 feet of water in 90 minutes.

On Wednesday, as well as back on Sept. 9, the weekly test didn’t go off at all.

On July 28, 2020, a Tuesday, a false alarm sounded and created major panic.

“We just saw all the cars leaving town. Everybody was out,” said Ali Davis, who lives nearby.

“People in town are still dealing with PTSD from this event,” said King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, who represents the area.

Now, after three alarm failures, Lambert has had more than enough and, on Thursday, issued a blistering statement against Seattle Public Utilities, the owner of the dam.

“It truly can be life and death, and it’s not being taken seriously,” Lambert said in an interview.

The reservoir behind Tolt Dam supplies 30% of the Seattle area’s drinking water.

On Thursday, a Chopper 7 video showed the dam was full after all the rain.

“While they have been very good about apologizing, they have not been very good about following through with the things we need to have done,” Lambert said.

KIRO 7 asked Seattle Public Utilities for an interview.

Instead, officials sent a statement, saying power outages brought down the fiber optic network that delivers the audio warnings.

They said the backup microwave system worked for safety monitoring of the dam, but not for the audio messages and that engineers are working on a fix.

The utility stated if there was an emergency, King County Emergency Management and the 911 center could send messages through Reverse 911 calls and text messages.

The utility stated after the false alarm last summer, it replaced a control panel.

It is also prioritizing an upgrade to the alarm system to be implemented in 2022.

Cox Media Group