Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Ocean Shores, WA

Ocean Shores is a city in Grays Harbor County, Washington, that occupies the entire Point Brown Peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and Grays Harbor bay on the other.

Long before development, the peninsula was used for trading by the Chinook, Chehalis, and Quinault tribes, and Captain Robert Gray sailed into the bay on May 7, 1792, the visit that eventually gave Grays Harbor its name.

The modern city traces to 1960, when rancher Ralph Minard sold the peninsula, long used as a cattle ranch, to the Ocean Shores Development Corporation for $1 million.

The developers marketed the planned resort city California-style, selling lots sight unseen from plat maps starting at $595, and platted some 25 miles of freshwater canals along with a marina that opened in 1963.

Singer Pat Boone became a resident and stockholder in the development in 1967 and promoted it through celebrity golf tournaments, and the wrecked 'boatel' SS Catala, driven ashore by a storm in the mid-1960s, was for years the most famous shipwreck on the Washington coast.

By 1969 Ocean Shores was being declared the 'richest little city' per capita in the country, with an assessed valuation of $35 million and only about 900 permanent residents.

Ocean Shores was incorporated on November 3, 1970, and its first school opened the following year.

The 2020 census counted 6,715 residents in Ocean Shores living in 3,437 households, but the city held 5,518 housing units, of which 37.7 percent stood vacant — a sign of its many second and vacation homes.

Ocean Shores is one of Washington's oldest-skewing cities, with a median age of 62.7 years in 2020 and 43.2 percent of residents aged 65 or older.

The city's oceanic climate brings about 75 inches of rain a year, mild summers, and winters that rarely see temperature extremes.