Sheriff's Corner

Hello from your Sheriff! I hope everyone is having a good start to 2025. So far, I have seen a lot of participation from the community in local events, programs, and outreach, and I thank all involved for making the most of what our beautiful county has to offer each other.

I encourage anyone who has thought about volunteering in service to Wahkiakum County to do so, whether that be in the Fire Departments, community projects such as the Youth Mentoring Program, or helping with the variety of great public events!

Scams continue to plague the Country with increasingly convincing phone calls created with Artificial Intelligence (AI), technology. AI is being used to transform written information into humanlike voices. Voices in a variety of accents have claimed to be my Undersheriff, Gary Howell, and even myself asking for financial information to take care of legal action. Please be very suspicious about any phone call soliciting financial information over the phone, and when in doubt reach out to a family member or the Sheriff’s Office.

I have seen increased reports regarding a group of large drones flying through our neighborhoods at odd hours. I have witnessed the drones hovering around my own neighborhood before flying away in formation. The Sheriff’s Office has reached out to surrounding agencies and partners regarding local drone activity and the consensus is that there is not much data available to us yet. The inquiry has been escalated to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to check for any authorized commercial or governmental drone flights in our area. Please contact the Sheriff’s Office if you have any information regarding the large drones.

I cannot stress enough the importance of being prepared for Winter and/or emergency conditions. Please be sure to refer to the prior “Emergency Preparedness in Wahkiakum County” articles written by Austin Smith, Shirley Rheault, and MD Johnson. I send my thanks to Emergency Management Coordinator Austin Smith and Volunteer First Responder MD Johnson for writing their articles with such great information. I send extra thanks to and would like to showcase Shirley Rheault for her participation in our community’s preparedness. Shirley is a volunteer citizen stakeholder in our local Emergency Preparedness Committee, and I commend Shirley on the sincere work that she has done in the interest of our community!