Wow, pretty interesting article. I had never heard of lahars before, but they sound absolutely terrifying. Some quick thoughts: Fuck me 23k people in mere minutes is horrifying. Just looked up...
Wow, pretty interesting article. I had never heard of lahars before, but they sound absolutely terrifying. Some quick thoughts:
The eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in November 1985 devastated the town of Armero, Colombia, when a lahar killed more than 23,000 people in a matter of minutes.
Fuck me 23k people in mere minutes is horrifying. Just looked up Pompeii for reference and it had a population of around 2,000 people when Vesuvius erupted (I know the two are nothing alike but just wanted to get a reference point for my brain to understand the scale of it all). And Mount St. Helens killed 57 people, which somehow sounds equally crazy given the insane pictures of it before/after.
Venus Dergan and her then-boyfriend, Roald Reitan, were caught in the Mount St. Helens lahar during a camping trip and are two of only a few people known to have survived being swept up in a debris flow.
“I tried to hang on as we were being swept downstream, the bark on the trees were just scraping. … I could feel it on my legs, on my arms,”
“And at one point, I went under the logs and the mud, and I just resigned myself that this was it. I wasn’t going to get out of this and that I was going to die.”
Reitan managed to lift her out of the mudflow, and they rode on a huge log down the river. When the log came to a stop, they jumped on to an embankment and crawled up a hillside, where they were rescued. It took Dergan two years to recover fully from her injuries.
What an experience, goddamn.
In March, some 45,000 students from Puyallup, Sumner-Bonney Lake, Orting, White River and Carbonado, Washington, participated in a lahar evacuation drill...
Around 13,000 students walked up to 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) to designated locations outside of the mapped lahar zone, while the remainder in schools situated outside the lahar zone practiced sheltering in place.
Moran said that the fail-safe parts of the lahar detection system are located about 45 minutes from the nearest large community, making that the time frame with which communities had to work.
I don't quite understand that fail-safe thing. Does that mean the children had up to 45 mins to evacuate? Or that they needed to get to a location 45 mins away in order to ensure safety? Or something else entirely? But damn, I've seen tornado drills and earthquake drills, but having a drill for lava+water coming at you at breakneck speeds is something I never considered.
I remember doing lahar drills at school a few decades ago, but we only practiced gathering near the street. From there, we were told the next steps were to run up the hill (we were in a valley),...
I remember doing lahar drills at school a few decades ago, but we only practiced gathering near the street. From there, we were told the next steps were to run up the hill (we were in a valley), but first stop by the elemental school that way (someone pointing) and pick up a few kids. I didn't know where that elementary school was or how far "that way" I'd have to go to find out and I'm not sure how many others knew since this school included more than just ppl from its town. So in an event of emergency, I assumed there would be no coordination and it would turn into complete chaos. I'm glad to see lahar drills are more thorough now and include actually walking an evacuation route.
Wow that's wild, asking older kids to carry younger ones to safety does not sound like a good strategy. And yeah I can imagine an elementary school being an absolute chaos during a real lahar...
Wow that's wild, asking older kids to carry younger ones to safety does not sound like a good strategy. And yeah I can imagine an elementary school being an absolute chaos during a real lahar situation. I just hope those lahar drills nowadays are taken more seriously than the tornado and fire drills that I remember from school.
Same. As a 15 year old, I remember looking up the hill (which is basically a cliff) they were telling us we needed to get up and thinking “oh, so we’re just completely fucked if this happens.”...
Same. As a 15 year old, I remember looking up the hill (which is basically a cliff) they were telling us we needed to get up and thinking “oh, so we’re just completely fucked if this happens.”
Getting up Eli Hill on foot before the lahar smooshes you feels like a nice idea to give you a sense of purpose in your final moments, kind of like how ducking and covering should be enough to protect you from a nuclear explosion.
Yes, 45 minutes to evacuate. That's how long it would take the lahar to reach the community once the seismometers, tripwires, cameras, etc detected it.
Yes, 45 minutes to evacuate. That's how long it would take the lahar to reach the community once the seismometers, tripwires, cameras, etc detected it.
Thanks. 2 miles in 45 minutes doesn't sound too bad, but with 13,000 other children (and countless other people around town) trying to evacuate as well, it should be a lot trickier. Still, I'm...
Thanks. 2 miles in 45 minutes doesn't sound too bad, but with 13,000 other children (and countless other people around town) trying to evacuate as well, it should be a lot trickier.
Still, I'm glad there's at least some sort of heads up. I wonder if the towns around there have lahar sirens how many places how tornado sirens. Would need to wake up the whole town if those sensors tripped in the middle of the night.
Yeah, it's really just the best they can do and not great. Honestly, the picture of teachers high fiving their students during the drill just made me sad because I couldn't help but imagine a real...
Yeah, it's really just the best they can do and not great. Honestly, the picture of teachers high fiving their students during the drill just made me sad because I couldn't help but imagine a real eruption where the teachers were doing that to keep the kids calm, knowing they would die.
The teacher could start running with the last kid, though, right? Wow imagining that alone has me tearing up. Hopefully not within our life time or not until we have personal mobile suits with...
The teacher could start running with the last kid, though, right? Wow imagining that alone has me tearing up. Hopefully not within our life time or not until we have personal mobile suits with power legs.
10 minutes until hot lava ice cement blocks your door and gum up your car. Absolutely terrifying. And 60 minutes still ain't anything like enough to even get the word out and organize for...
“Should it be the same size, then it’s 10 minutes to the nearest places where people are living, and 60 minutes to the nearest large communities. And those are really short time frames,” he added.
10 minutes until hot lava ice cement blocks your door and gum up your car. Absolutely terrifying. And 60 minutes still ain't anything like enough to even get the word out and organize for everybody out.
it would travel at the speed of 13 feet (4 meters) per second.
That's far faster than we can run. Avg human can run 10km/hr which is definitely less than 4m/s. And a lahar doesn't run out of breath.
And Rainier is not the only risk in the State: there's Baker and Glacier Peak just to the north.
Wow that first map looks scary. I'm fascinated by volcanic eruptions (and natural disasters in general) and how we react to them. Like obviously they are terrible when they cause catastrophic loss...
Wow that first map looks scary.
I'm fascinated by volcanic eruptions (and natural disasters in general) and how we react to them. Like obviously they are terrible when they cause catastrophic loss of life, but because they happen on geological timeframes, they seem to not be a big deal to us until they erupt. Like even these articles and graphs and everything are all talking about how these volcanoes are due for an eruption any time now, but that 'any time now' could be well after all of our lifetimes. So it seems a bit silly to worry about them.
Until, of course, it erupts. Then not worrying about it will seem dumb in hindsight. And fingers will get pointed around asking inevitable questions like "why would you build your town underneath an active volcano?" and "how could we have prepared better for such a tragedy?". And then a couple of generations later we will be back to not worrying about it because the next eruption will feel like a distant future.
I think complacency happens with most natural disasters, actually. But I feel like it is especially true for volcanic eruptions because of how infrequent they are compared to things like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, and droughts.
I'm pretty sure Tacoma has been rated one of the top 2 worst located cities (along with New Orleans) because it is right in the pathway of a lahars going to puget sound (from what I understand...
I'm pretty sure Tacoma has been rated one of the top 2 worst located cities (along with New Orleans) because it is right in the pathway of a lahars going to puget sound (from what I understand they do tend to have usual pathways).
I know when I moved up here 20 years ago me and a friend would go there and joke about how the volcano was overdue to blow up (it is by a few thousand years I believe) and was going to blow up anytime.
(easier for me to joke, I actually live N. of Seattle and I think out of the pathways of where the lahars would go. Seattle actually being in the way is news to me though so I could be wrong about how safe we are location wise).
In terms of US cities, San Fransisco being located right on the San Andreas faultline has to be up there.
I'm pretty sure Tacoma has been rated one of the top 2 worst located cities (along with New Orleans) because it is right in the pathway of a lahars going to puget sound (from what I understand they do tend to have usual pathways).
In terms of US cities, San Fransisco being located right on the San Andreas faultline has to be up there.
Nah, the San Andreas faultline is on the other side of the Bay, running through Berkeley and Oakland. UC Berkeley actually has a football stadium directly on top of the fault; the two halves of...
Nah, the San Andreas faultline is on the other side of the Bay, running through Berkeley and Oakland. UC Berkeley actually has a football stadium directly on top of the fault; the two halves of the building are heading in opposite directions.
Wow, pretty interesting article. I had never heard of lahars before, but they sound absolutely terrifying. Some quick thoughts:
Fuck me 23k people in mere minutes is horrifying. Just looked up Pompeii for reference and it had a population of around 2,000 people when Vesuvius erupted (I know the two are nothing alike but just wanted to get a reference point for my brain to understand the scale of it all). And Mount St. Helens killed 57 people, which somehow sounds equally crazy given the insane pictures of it before/after.
What an experience, goddamn.
I don't quite understand that fail-safe thing. Does that mean the children had up to 45 mins to evacuate? Or that they needed to get to a location 45 mins away in order to ensure safety? Or something else entirely? But damn, I've seen tornado drills and earthquake drills, but having a drill for lava+water coming at you at breakneck speeds is something I never considered.
Anyways, thanks for sharing, OP.
I remember doing lahar drills at school a few decades ago, but we only practiced gathering near the street. From there, we were told the next steps were to run up the hill (we were in a valley), but first stop by the elemental school that way (someone pointing) and pick up a few kids. I didn't know where that elementary school was or how far "that way" I'd have to go to find out and I'm not sure how many others knew since this school included more than just ppl from its town. So in an event of emergency, I assumed there would be no coordination and it would turn into complete chaos. I'm glad to see lahar drills are more thorough now and include actually walking an evacuation route.
Wow that's wild, asking older kids to carry younger ones to safety does not sound like a good strategy. And yeah I can imagine an elementary school being an absolute chaos during a real lahar situation. I just hope those lahar drills nowadays are taken more seriously than the tornado and fire drills that I remember from school.
Same. As a 15 year old, I remember looking up the hill (which is basically a cliff) they were telling us we needed to get up and thinking “oh, so we’re just completely fucked if this happens.”
Getting up Eli Hill on foot before the lahar smooshes you feels like a nice idea to give you a sense of purpose in your final moments, kind of like how ducking and covering should be enough to protect you from a nuclear explosion.
Yes, 45 minutes to evacuate. That's how long it would take the lahar to reach the community once the seismometers, tripwires, cameras, etc detected it.
Thanks. 2 miles in 45 minutes doesn't sound too bad, but with 13,000 other children (and countless other people around town) trying to evacuate as well, it should be a lot trickier.
Still, I'm glad there's at least some sort of heads up. I wonder if the towns around there have lahar sirens how many places how tornado sirens. Would need to wake up the whole town if those sensors tripped in the middle of the night.
Yeah, it's really just the best they can do and not great. Honestly, the picture of teachers high fiving their students during the drill just made me sad because I couldn't help but imagine a real eruption where the teachers were doing that to keep the kids calm, knowing they would die.
The teacher could start running with the last kid, though, right? Wow imagining that alone has me tearing up. Hopefully not within our life time or not until we have personal mobile suits with power legs.
10 minutes until hot lava ice cement blocks your door and gum up your car. Absolutely terrifying. And 60 minutes still ain't anything like enough to even get the word out and organize for everybody out.
That's far faster than we can run. Avg human can run 10km/hr which is definitely less than 4m/s. And a lahar doesn't run out of breath.
And Rainier is not the only risk in the State: there's Baker and Glacier Peak just to the north.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/olcanic-hazard-map-for-Mount-Baker-and-Glacier-Peak-showing-lahar-paths-along-Skagit_fig1_313234437
The hazard maps are informative though
https://www.dnr.wa.gov/programs-and-services/geology/geologic-hazards/volcanoes-and-lahars#volcano-hazard-information-map
Do....lahars get triggered as well when The Really Big One hits? I hope not.
Wow that first map looks scary.
I'm fascinated by volcanic eruptions (and natural disasters in general) and how we react to them. Like obviously they are terrible when they cause catastrophic loss of life, but because they happen on geological timeframes, they seem to not be a big deal to us until they erupt. Like even these articles and graphs and everything are all talking about how these volcanoes are due for an eruption any time now, but that 'any time now' could be well after all of our lifetimes. So it seems a bit silly to worry about them.
Until, of course, it erupts. Then not worrying about it will seem dumb in hindsight. And fingers will get pointed around asking inevitable questions like "why would you build your town underneath an active volcano?" and "how could we have prepared better for such a tragedy?". And then a couple of generations later we will be back to not worrying about it because the next eruption will feel like a distant future.
I think complacency happens with most natural disasters, actually. But I feel like it is especially true for volcanic eruptions because of how infrequent they are compared to things like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, and droughts.
I'm pretty sure Tacoma has been rated one of the top 2 worst located cities (along with New Orleans) because it is right in the pathway of a lahars going to puget sound (from what I understand they do tend to have usual pathways).
I know when I moved up here 20 years ago me and a friend would go there and joke about how the volcano was overdue to blow up (it is by a few thousand years I believe) and was going to blow up anytime.
(easier for me to joke, I actually live N. of Seattle and I think out of the pathways of where the lahars would go. Seattle actually being in the way is news to me though so I could be wrong about how safe we are location wise).
In terms of US cities, San Fransisco being located right on the San Andreas faultline has to be up there.
Nah, the San Andreas faultline is on the other side of the Bay, running through Berkeley and Oakland. UC Berkeley actually has a football stadium directly on top of the fault; the two halves of the building are heading in opposite directions.
And somehow, that still wouldn't be the strangest play that stadium has ever seen.
When I lived in Puyallup, we would also always joke about it, but half seriously. Like haha, if that thing wakes up, we're just fucked, aren't we.