Official apologizes for failure of Grays Harbor County’s tsunami alert system

Grays Harbor residents who signed up for emergency alerts should have received a notification of a coastal tsunami watch following the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck 175 miles southeast of Kodiak Island early Tuesday.

However, the alerts never made it through the Grays Harbor County Emergency Notification System operated through Teleira, officials say. The tsunami watch, which was activated for coastal communities in Alaska, Canada, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii, was canceled a few hours later.

“After discussing everything with Teleira, we discovered the coastal notification was indeed activated by Grays Harbor Emergency Management to send the Alaska Tsunami Watch information notice, but it failed to be pushed out to the citizens via Teleira due to a technical oversight,” Chuck Wallace, deputy director of Grays Harbor County Emergency Management posted on the organization’s Facebook page on Wednesday. “The names for the coastal notifications were not in the (queue) to be sent, so as the notification request was activated, no notifications were sent.”

In addition, Wallace said he should have checked to see how many people were in the queue before activating the message, but he was acting in haste and didn’t make that verification.

“As a result and unknown to myself in Emergency Management, none of the coastal recipients received notice via phone call, text or e-mail,” he wrote.

Wallace said the issue has been corrected and new procedures are now in place to prevent the mistake from being repeated.

“I apologize for the anger and confusion caused by this situation and accept full responsibility for the non-notice,” Wallace wrote. “…The people we serve must have trust and faith in the ability of Grays Harbor Emergency Management to inform, notify and help protect them. This event casts a doubt in our abilities to many people.

“I want to assure you, Grays Harbor County Emergency Management will continue to work to rebuild your trust in our competence and proficiency in the mission we have been charged to accomplish.”

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 9:52 AM with the headline "Official apologizes for failure of Grays Harbor County’s tsunami alert system."