By Pepper Fisher
CLALLAM BAY – We’ve learned that the huge landslide that took out SR 112 between Sekiu and Clallam Bay has not only closed traffic, but is contributing to a water outage for the Sekiu Community.
Clallam County Emergency Management, which is operating under a state of emergency declared Monday by County Commissioners, says volunteers and their aircraft from the Disaster Airlift Response Team (or DART), State of Washington and PUD are all working to get water to that community.
Numerous flights have been made between Port Angeles and Sekiu for the delivery of bottled water, medicines and vaccines, some of which is now being driven into Neah Bay.
Alan Barnard is the Chairman of the all-volunteer DART program and caught up with him this afternoon.
He says 7 pilots with their aircraft and 4 ground crew kicked into gear yesterday and today to respond to Sekiu’s emergency.
“They had a major disruption of the water system. A main was broken and they have no potable water. Even at this point, there’s no potable water in the Sekiu area. So we hauled about 825 gallons of drinking water between six of our seven airplanes.”
Barnard said they made about 16 flights in the 2 days. The DART program is the brainchild of Barnard himself, and is now a nationally recognized group. They’ve run numerous drills over the last few years, but this was the first time they’ve been called upon for an actual emergency operation.
Barnard is understandably pleased with the result.
“Especially for us, to know that we’re effective, it was successful, everybody was safe. And we have a mechanism that, when everybody’s cut off, from push comes to shove, we do have the ability to get pilots, people, equipment and medical supplies in the air to get help on the west end. And that’s what it was all designed for.”
(Photo: DART crew during practice runs in 2019)