Noisy ‘air-raid style’ Bremerton tunnel fire alarm blares for hours after vandal triggers it

BREMERTON — A vandal triggered a fire alarm in the city’s urban transit tunnel early Wednesday, giving local residents downtown an earful for more than three hours.

A man, who city officials described as homeless, apparently wandered into the 959-foot-long tunnel that runs from the ferry terminal to Burwell Street sometime before 3 a.m. He "vandalized and activated the fire alarm system," also triggering the tunnel-wide ventilation system, according to Chris Mottner, internal services manager for the city's public works department.

But the alarm's activation did not reach the city's contracted monitoring company and thus the public works department wasn’t notified immediately. The alarm wasn't disabled until about 6:30 am.

Tom Yoshimura, a nearby resident who couldn't sleep through the noise, described it as a "very loud air-raid style siren."

"It was so loud I thought it might have been an alarm from the (Puget Sound Naval) shipyard," said Yoshimura, who worried that, beyond being a nuisance, others might have been in danger.

Mottner, who concurred that the alarm is "very loud" and echoes through the tunnel when activated, said the city is confident it has fixed the alarm system to ensure it alerts the contracted monitoring company. He did add the city has concerns about trespassers at what is a vehicle-only tunnel underneath the city's downtown.

"I am very sorry for all the local residents that had to endure the siren and alarm message alerts," he said.

Total damage to the tunnel is estimated at about $745. The incident is still under investigation and the city's police and fire departments are working to identify a suspect.

The 2009-completed tunnel cost $54 million and was designed to move cars out of downtown at a time when state ferry service ran about double the runs it makes today.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Vandal triggers Bremerton fire alarm near Washington ferry terminal