CLALLAM BAY — Clallam Bay’s tsunami warning tower may be down, but it’s not out.
It’s actually in the Fire District No. 5 engine house waiting for a new home.
Here’s how it got there:
The state Emergency Management Division erected the All Hazard Alert Broadcast System last summer atop a 60-foot-tall tower at Slip Point on Clallam Bay’s east shore.
Site of a lighthouse built in 1905 but long since torn down, the property has been surplused and promised to Clallam County.
The county even leases the lighthouse keeper’s quarters for a West End sheriff’s deputy — which maybe was why a former sheriff and a former emergency director thought it belonged to Clallam County.
But the deal hasn’t gone through yet, and Slip Point still belongs to the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard said the land likely overlies Native American artifacts, perhaps remains.
“They were concerned because the entire site is historical and archaeological,” said Bob Martin, the current head of Clallam County’s Emergency Management Division.
