New tsunami warning system reported at FD 13 meeting

They say a busy person wears many hats.

If so, count Skagit County Fire District 13 Captain Ted Taylor among those rarely seen bare headed.

Last Friday, during the district’s monthly fire commissioners Zoom meeting, Taylor provided a prime example – at least metaphorically. He said he was donning his “Captain Catastrophe” hat, though Taylor’s brief emergency management report was alarming only in terms of its main topic – an overview of the recently installed local All Hazard Alert Broadcast (AHAB) tsunami warning system.

Taylor offered what he called a “tip of the hat” to Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Director of Emergency Management Jim Sande for his role in siting a trio of pole-mounted sirens in Swinomish Village, along the shoreline and in the Shelter Bay residential community. The sirens are programmed to issue regular tests on the first Monday of each month.

“The tests will have Westminster chimes followed by a voice announcement,” Taylor told commissioners Bruce Shellhamer, J.J. Wilbur and John Doyle.

Tsunamis are a series of large waves that can be generated by a major earthquake, an event often forecast for the Pacific Northwest and which Taylor frequently refers to in monthly reports as “The Big One.”

“I don’t think we’ll see an 80-foot wave,” he said on Friday, “but we would see a significant surge. It will be important for boats to get ashore.”

Taylor said that when The Big One hits, “we’ll need some way of doing community triage.”

Preparation starts with providing large two-sided signs to Swinomish and Shelter Bay households. One sign will read ‘Help’, the other ‘OK.’

“Residents can put these up so that CERTs (Community Emergency Response Teams) can go through neighborhoods and assess the situation,” said Taylor. “These will be critical for the fire district when we have The Big One.” He called it “a program in progress.”

Progress is also being made on the COVID-19 front, said Chief Wood Weiss, who participated while riding as a passenger on I-5 to attend a commencement program at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“We need to keep our fingers crossed that the (COVID-19) numbers keep going down and moving in the right direction,” Weiss said.

In terms of service call numbers, Weiss said those dipped slightly, to 79 this May from 82 in May 2020 . However, he noted that 23 of last month’s calls were transports.

The fire district responded to 156 incident calls in May 2019, the year prior to the pandemic.

He reported staff took part in wildland officer training this spring.

“It was a great class,” said Weiss. “We had the most firefighters present. Fire District 13 is pushing hard to be at the forefront of wildland fire protection.”

Assistant Chief Jamie Jurdi reported on a recent break-in at Station One (Summit Park) by someone who siphoned fuel from vehicles kept there for extrication training. “They cut through the fence and there was a hose coming out of one of the cars,” said Jurdi, “but nothing was stolen other than the gas.” He said the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office will step up patrols in the area.

Community Relations Officer Gary Ladd noted that the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community built eight new homes for tribal elders. He suggested fire district crews familiarize themselves with locations and addresses of those homes to assure rapid response times.