Shoalwater Bay Tribe will build Washington state’s second tsunami refuge, a tower at Willapa Bay

The tiny town of Tokeland, Pacific County, occupies a thumb of land that juts into Willapa Bay on the Washington coast. With the closest high ground more than two miles away, the 400 or so inhabitants would have little hope of escaping the tsunami expected to follow on the heels of the next Cascadia megaquake.

So the region’s biggest employer — the Shoalwater Bay Tribe — set out to improve the odds for both tribal members and their neighbors.

Competing