SEATTLE -- If you've been to the Washington Coast, you've likely taken note of some gray to white disks that sit on top of telephone poles.
They are warning sirens, part of a network of warnings that will light up, sound a series of chimes and give verbal warnings of an impending threat. The sirens were placed primarily as a warning to get people to flee to higher ground if a tsunami is on its way.
The system is tested monthly.In June residents along the Washington Coast from Pacific County in the southwest to Port Townsend in the northeast part of the Olympic Penninsula heard a garbled set of warnings that ranged from the threat of tsunamis to hazardous materials, even a volcanic erruption.
The problem is that none of it was true. The test should have send just that: This is a test.
The tests are sent out monthly through a satellite link from the state's Emergency Management Division headquarters at Camp Murray south of Tacoma. How the normal testmessage ended upgarbled and then went out unnoticed from a computer in a room just off the Emergency Operations Center isn't known says John Schelling,Earthquake Program Manager for Emergency Management.
But Schelling and the manufacturer of the system, Federal Signal Corporation, say they're determined to prevent any more mistakes.
It's important for the public to trust the system, said Schelling.
Kim Torp-Pedersen, who represents the manufacturer, says one explaination is that the words were changed around during a training lesson. The ability to change themessage is now password protected.
Federal Signal is also installing the guts of one of the sirens in a radio room off the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to provide instant verification for the operators in the center 24-7 that the message that goesout is the correct one.
The test was rerun Monday and of the 49 stations, 48 picked up the correct signal. The onefailure was the siren at Fort Worden near Port Townsend that was determined to have a failed battery.
