Puyallup holds largest ever volcano evacuation drill
Students from both public and private schools participated in the largest evacuation drill in the Puyallup's history. The reason is literally a powerful one, as Mount Rainier, considered one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes, threatens to send a wall of mud down the Puyallup River into the town during an eruption.
This kind of mud flow is fueled by melting glaciers which would quickly turn to water in the heat and explosion of an eruption. Adding to the glacial melt, rain which is often part of an eruption mixes in massive amounts of ash, creating the mud. That mud is often described as wet concrete, and includes rocks, dirt and other material.
It is not a hypothetical problem, as lahar's came down the Toutle river during the May 18th eruption from Mount St. Helens, also in Washington state.
The City of Puyallup has one advantage, it has some time. A lahar is not expected to reach the growing city for up to four hours after an eruption, according to the Cascades Volcano Observatory, part of the U.S. Geological Survey and based in Vancouver, Washington.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/puyallup-holds-largest-ever-volcano-evacuation-drill/ar-AABx7SD
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That is what a USGS geologist told me when I asked him about the volcano monitoring equipment that was set up beneath my fire lookout tower on a 6500-foot butte near the Cascade Range in Oregon a few years back.
"And the South Sister is bulging," he said. "Bad sign."
"And Mt. Rainier! Don't get a fire lookout job anywhere close to Rainier. That sucka's gonna blow!"
Just asking for friends.
The "Three Sisters" are 10,000-foot+ mountains, and the South Sister is the tallest of the three. South Sister is about 50 miles west-northwest of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. Seismically speaking, the area is very hot.
