Journey around the pacific
rim and you experience a multitude of sensations each helping define a
culture uniquely its own. Yet there is
a common thread that weaves this
intricate tapestry of life together and it
is one of old as time itself. like sentinels they watch over
our daily lives, as we revel in their
beauty but when they wake their fury
transcends all cultures. Forcing us to face an age old
question, what do we do when sleeping
giants wake? ♪ ♪ To live along America's West
Coast is to live among Giants these massive mountains of the Cascades reign
supreme over a domain that spans three
states for millions their silhouettes
are a welcomed backdrop against the
horizon of their daily lives. Other than
the eruption of Mount St. Helens in
1980 this volcanic range has remained
relatively silent for hundreds of years a fact that causes
many to view them nearly as beautiful mountains.
>>It's the first thing we look at in the
morning and the last thing we look at at
night we love it. >>The truth is these mountains
are part of the infamous Ring of Fire a
chain of volcanoes that encircle the
Pacific Ocean and include 70% of the
Earth's active volcanoes. As the
population of the west coast continues to grow
more and more people are choosing to
live in the shadow of these volcanoes
the question that needs to be
answered is are Americans prepared to face
the potential hazards of this
choice. >>Hazards that volcanoes
don't change the hazards in the Cascades are the same as
they were a thousand years ago what
changes is the risk, we create risk by
putting ourselves in the areas where the
hazards are. For many the likelihood of
an eruption seems so far removed
they don't even know what the risks are yet
this attitude could prove disastrous. >>The Cascade Range is
a particular concern to the US Geological Survey because
many of the volcanoes in the Cascade
Range have erupted frequently over the
geologic past they are still considered
active and they will erupt again it's
only a question of when. >>While we
wait for the inevitable eruption in the
Cascade Range there is much we can learn from
those who have first-hand experience.
Since the entire country is made up of
volcanic islands the people of Japan take
a very proactive approach to dealing
with volcanic hazards. Located on
the Unzen Peninsula is the City of
Shimabara. Surrounded by farmland this
community of 42,000 represents the epitome of
rural Japanese living. Across their country this area
is known for its involvement with the
Christian uprising. It's clear spring
water. For being the birthplace of the
famous sculpture Seibo Kitamura and for
being the home of the country's
newest mountain. The center of the peninsula is
made up of a complex of volcanoes often collectively referred
to as Mt. Unzen. The peak called Fugen-Dake used
to be lower in elevation than its
Siamese twin Unseen but that changed in the
mid-90s when the volcano recreated
itself building a massive dome in doing
so Fugue-Dake unleashed one
destructive event after another on the
peaceful tenants that inhabit its flanks. >>I know
(translator) we received a great amount of damage to the area so people
were asked to evacuate to the designated
areas the evacuation took place in
auditoriums and hotels as well as passenger
boats children were kept from going to
school and their summer vacation had to
start earlier than scheduled children
also had to wear helmets and masks people
moved into temporary housing and then
upon its completion into public housing. Pyroclastic flows comprised of
superheated gas ash and stone seared the mountain's
flanks homes and farms centuries-old were wiped away. (translator) During the volcanic
activities it began with a pyroclastic flow
which led to a fire that burned down the
houses there were 50 houses in the area
but all the houses were destroyed I did
not actually see the fire damage
when it started but it is kind of like
an atomic bomb explosion which leaves
nothing >>Many families were evacuated
several different times before being
forced permanently from their houses
for some the repeated evacuations
instilled a false sense of security and
added to the shock when their homes
generations in the making were finally
devoured. (Translator) >>The first
pyroclastic flow we were very afraid because it was
so sudden and we had to evacuate so
quickly and then during the month of
June it didn't seem so bad because the
flow had already kind of carved a path it
started in May and ended on June 24th. Although I did not actually see
it with my own eyes when it happened my
house was blown up by the force of
fire and did not leave any debris. >>Another side effect of
volcanic activity is mud flows or lahars channeled
by River Valleys volcanic debris
combines with water to form a fast-moving
wall of hot sludge as lahar sweep
downstream they leave nothing but a wake of unbelievable destruction. In
Shimabara entire neighborhoods once
nestled among trees and rice fields were
completely buried. (translator) >>The north part
over there was actually the first to go because if it's
physical geography being the lowest and
then little by little it's spread
over to this area. It took roughly two and a half years for it to
come to this condition. This area was covered with
houses all around here all the way down to the
highway down by the ocean there were
also scattered rice fields. >>Though
the loss of property was great prior
planning did save countless lives. (SFX
emergency horn) Shimabara's warning system is
state-of-the-art numerous cameras keep a constant vigil on
the mountain there are 73 speakers
set up at strategic locations throughout
the city whenever there is an emergency
live broadcasts inform the people
what is happening and what they should
do. (Loudspeaker in Japanese) All seems routine that's because
for them it is, from 1993 to 1996
there were 34 separate evacuations of up to
7,000 people at one time some of the
evacuee's lived in temporary housing for
up to two and a half years. Fugen Daki
again fell silent in 1996 but the threat of
mud flows remained as a result the
warning systems are still activated
whenever there is heavy rainfall which
here is common for three months out of
every year. Besides the police and fire
departments there are close to 400
townspeople designated to help with
evacuation procedures in a culture that
thrives on conformity it may seem strange
to find that the people have been taught
to take individual responsibility for
their lives and not to rely on the
government. (translator) >>The City of
Shimabara has organized evacuation training sessions once a year people are
instructed by their district personnel for evacuation
to the designated areas. From a training session I per
finally learned that I have to protect
my own life they tell people to think
about their own lives and take care of
themselves especially when danger seems
clear and present they tell people to help
each other too - especially the sick
and elderly. >>Despite the hardships the
people who live here have no plans of
leaving this is their home and most say there
is nowhere else they would rather
be. (translator) >>Japan as a
country is prone to having such volcanic activities so
where can you go that's going to be 100%
safe and in addition to that people here
in Shimabara have a deep-rooted
love for their home. Despite the fact
that the damage was severe the people
have rebounded. >>While living on the flanks of
volcanoes is a necessity in Japan along
America's west coast people still have a
choice in the matter. >>in the United States we have
enough land that if it's used wisely and if land use land use
practices Planning and Zoning and so forth
are used properly we could avoid
development of hospitals and communities and
towns and villages in areas that will
be destroyed by future volcanic
eruptions. >>There are a few places in the
Cascades however where communities are
already built right on the flanks of
volcanoes. In the old days logging is what
drew people to the towns of McLeod
Mount Shasta and Weed, but no more
these days all reasons seem connected to
one impressive centerpiece. >>We've got a climbing community
that you know it's absolutely an awesome mountain you have a
skiing community that thinks it's wonderful visibly everybody
that comes up here when they buy a
home they want a view of Mount Shasta
because it is so tremendous there's a New
Age community that it looks at it
for their reasons there's a lot of
different religions that are attracted to
it because for their reasons so
it's extremely important to the all
the North State economy. >>People come here to attain a
certain quality of life and most don't care to worry about the
possibility of an eruption. >>I just love the
mountain and if something happened I guess I
would take means to get out of here
but I never think about it like I
chose to live here and everyone wants to
come here and vacation and I live in
the vacation land so I get to enjoy
it every day. >>There is however some
cause for awareness if not concern. >>You
have about a 1 in 25 or 30 chance of
seeing an eruption in any decade or if
you multiply that out of a person
lives to be 70 or 80 years old there's
about a 1 in 3 or 4 chance that if you
lived here your whole life time you'd
witness an eruption from Shasta but you
know it's just of course there's a lot
better odds and you get with the state
lottery or something like that. >>When the
odds finally do play out the
communities that skirt Mount Shasta will indeed
face real danger. >>Well Mount Shasta is a volcano
that tends to erupt like mount st.
Helens it tends to be a more explosive
volcano and when it erupts it produces
particularly large volumes of pyroclastic
flow materials it also produces mud
flows because of the snow and ice on
the upper part of the volcano at Mt. Shasta, the
pyroclastic flows have been very voluminous in the past and they
have gone down nearly all flanks of
the volcano at high speeds and
they've gone out to distances of at least 30 kilometers or 20 miles from the
volcano. >>The towns around Mount Shasta
house 50% of the county's population and
are built right on top of these old flows. >>Volcanoes like Unzen make it
very clear that once the town is there and
the pyroclastic flows begin you one
has real really serious problems people
have to be evacuated hopefully in time
it's difficult to keep people out of
their towns until they've been
destroyed and the consequences are very costly
for civilization, when pyroclastic
flows sweep through a village and destroy it. >>So
even if the citizens aren't concerned
government agencies should be in order for
evacuations to work there must be prior planning the towns here
coordinate their efforts with the county. >>Because of it being a rural area there are very few
evacuation routes we basically have a main north-south
route and one east-west route and there aren't any other
ways of getting out of here so planning
wise the routes are already identified
it's just knowing which routes are going
to be open for any given set of
circumstances. >>No matter what the
circumstances the impact of an eruption would most
likely reach far beyond this County the
I-5 corridor a major route for
traffic heading up and down the west
coast runs right by Mount Shasta. >>It
doesn't take much ash to really wreak havoc
now not Mt Shasta historically has not
been a big ash producer but all it
would take would be perhaps five
centimetres of ash a couple of inches of ash to
fall in this area to accumulate on the interstate and you can imagine
how that would disrupt traffic. The other thing is of course
this is a narrow air corridor flights from
the Pacific Northwest go on one side
of the mountain flights from Southern California to that area go on
the other side and as has happened with
the Alaskan volcanoes if a plane is
caught in the plume from the volcano
the grit will get in damage the jet
engines and they often have to make
emergency landings so there's a potential
for really disrupting air traffic. >>The potential for disaster is
increased when eruptions occur during inclement
weather radar systems onboard aircraft
cannot tell the difference between a
normal cloud bank and a cloud of ash. >>It may cause loss of
power on the engines now this has happened a number of
times there has yet there have yet to
be any any crashes as a result of this
but it has cost tens or hundreds of
millions of dollars worldwide over the last
25 years or so. >>There are about 3,500
permanent residents in the town of Mount
Shasta and most of them share the same
attitude. >>Most of the locals those that
have either been born and raised here
been here for a lot of years don't
think much of it at all maybe we should I
don't know but we don't think much of
it at all and so it's the folks that
are coming in to think a lot more of
it and typically I think we think that
you know the geologists and a lot of
people it kind of ends up in the
newspapers on a continual basis they just don't
have much else to print a report on
so about every one two years you know it
shows up again and everybody gets stirred
up for Minute then it all dies down. >>I think that there's no
problem there's a hundred percent probability that the
mountain will erupt just a matter of
when, and it may happen in our lifetime it
may not it happens you know will react and
get the word out to do the best we can it may not happen so why worry
about it (chuckles) >>This may be easy to say when
an eruption does not appear imminent but would they feel the same way when actually
faced with the unthinkable. From 1993
through 1996 there were more than 82
pyroclastic flows from Mount Fugen Dake and
though it is dwarfed in size by the
Cascade Mountains there were also
numerous mud flows in all 44 people were
killed while more than 2,500 homes and
precious acres of farmland were engulfed. Nevertheless the Japanese
government is not about to surrender this land
to a volcano. Massive construction projects
are underway to repair the damage
and prevent further
destruction by future druptions. To do this they are
building a series of some 80 sabo or
sediment dams in the valleys leading away from
the volcanoes. (translator) >>The
function of the sediment dams is to control the mud flow
and to prevent it from overlaying large
areas at one time. >>Dams of this type
have been used in Japan for close to 100
years but there are several aspects of
this project that are unprecedented
one is its size the project began in
1992 and will continue for at least 20
years it involves moving deposits from
one side of the mountain to the other
every day 800 loads of volcanic debris are
scooped trucked across town then dumped
as fill. The use of satellites is
another first for this type of
operation. (translator) >>Because of the
inability to predict sudden massive amounts
of debris flow above the sabo dams we
deemed it as necessary to undergo this
activity of using remote control. >>Like
giant children's toys these earth
movers roam about seemingly unattended. As a result of these efforts
land that just a year ago resembled the
surface of the Moon is once again becoming
rich farmland. And rather than being apprehensive most people can't
wait for the new Sabo dams to be
completed so they can return to their
ancestral homes. (translator)>>I have childhood
and school memories of it being incredibly beautiful but these memories have been erased they
disappeared instantly it was a beautiful place now there is nothing left
it seems like my past has vanished. But since government agencies
are taking necessary steps to make the area safe I feel that
in the future I will live in the same
area once again. >>When we look at a
country like Japan it appears as if
technology and engineering can be used to
circumvent most if not all problems
associated with volcanoes but in order to
accomplish this there must be a tremendous dedication of resources
something not all countries are willing or
able to do >>Well in some places you may be
able to intervene put the proper
countermeasures but I think this strategy is
really just to deflect flows away from
developed areas away from towns away from
cities if you can but there are places
when you have to give up if a town is a
longer way and you put a barrier the
lahars will just fill this up and then
later on attack the town. >>This has been
the case with a large volcano in the
Philippines in 1991 Mount Pinatubo
woke from a 500-year sleep to create crisis
on an international scale. (TV audio)>>Thousands of
American military families and civilian workers have been
evacuated from Clark Air Base and Subic
Naval Station in the Philippines the
mass evacuation was prompted by the
eruption of Mount Pinatubo. >>The United
States had two large military bases in
harm's way and members of the United States Geological Survey's "volcano
crisis assistance teams" were brought
in to help determine what the volcano might
do. >>They and their Filipino
colleagues from the Philippine Institute of
Volcanology and seismology accurately
predicted that the volcano was building up to
something big as outward signs of the
mountain's activity increased the
Philippine government and the US military heeded the scientists advice and
evacuated, a move that ended up saving thousands. >>The climactic eruption at
Pinatubo was about 2:00 in the afternoon
local time and that was when we bugged out
because of all our equipment had been
destroyed we were no longer serving any
function standing there in the path of
the potential pyroclastic flows and
so we left. >>With the eruption in
full swing very dark basically the Sun in
the middle of the day is blotted out
it's a very dark dark the it's a
special kind of dark it's a it's a kind of a
smothering dark as we drove away you know though
there were we were being showered by
pieces of pumice perhaps golf ball-sized
and ash coming down continuously
extremely difficult to drive in. >>A few
hours later the big earthquake started and
they went pretty much through the night
and into the next day there was a
combination of having had the tropical storm
pass through as the volcano was
erupting and ensuring that all the ash that
felt was wet so you had six inches or
twelve inches of wet cement on you,
shaking everything with magnitude threes and fours and even I guess a
five but because most of the damage the
roofs collapsed buildings fell in. >>About 1 million people
were evacuated during the eruptions at Mount Pinatubo yet
still at least 300 died overrun by
pyroclastic and mud flows and trapped under
collapsed roofs more than 10,000 of the evacuees were
permanently displaced so now most of these people live in relocation settlements built by
the government. This eruption of Pinatubo was
much larger than the one at St.
Helens in 1980 and it indicates just how
long a volcano can disrupt people's
lives often changing how they live forever. >>That eruption produced
such a large volume of loose fragmental material that
piled up around the volcano and now that
material is being redistributed
downstream by water in the form of lahars or
mud flows the chronic effects of the
eruption are probably worse than the acute
effects that occur during immediately
after the eruption. >>In tropical settings like the
Philippines that have prolonged rainy seasons where it's
normal to experience numerous typhoons every year the problems with lahar's are
amplified. The rains carve gullies hundreds of
feet deep into the debris on
Pinatubo's slopes and wash it to the valley floors
below. >>We have one called, one worst
case scenario where 30 million cubic meters of lahar came down during one one
rainfall and that's a lot. If you imagine about ten cubic
meters can be loaded in one truck ten
cubic meters thirty million would
require three million. >>Year after year the flows
continue. >>We are here at Mt. Katchambora,
very near the active Channel Pacepatero
which is one of the most critical
channel or lahar in the eastern side. >>From 1991 through 1996
350 million cubic meters of volcanic material have come down
this channel alone. Mount Pinatubo stopped erupting
the same year it began yet it still continues to disrupt
people lives. Bacolor is located some 30 miles from the
mountain it was first hit by lahars in
1992 but the worst occurred in October of
95 when a dike constructed to hold back
the debris failed three to four
meters of silty mud buried a large section
of town. The community's grand Cathedral
cracked under the strain but withstood the blow now
however parishioners must enter through
what used to be a second-story window. >>Damage to properties can be
seen all around and then as to the numbers of number
of lives lost the figure that we
are always ready to talk about is something
like forty to fifty people lost but
there are families who keep insisting that
they have not found their loved ones
and the tally of this amounts to
something like 1,000 people missing during that
during that one episode. >>The danger of lahars here continues to this day but
rather than abandon the area completely
some people have chosen to rebuild their homes on stilts, the theory
being that with its path unobstructed the
next lahar will simply flow past. >>The fact that Bacolod is the
premiere town of Pompanga this was once the
capital of the province and at one time
also the capital of the Philippines so
this is populated by most of the old
reeds and the influential people of
Pompanga and they just don't want to
abandon the place even if it if it is
already being hit by lahars. It is a common response the
world over few want to admit that their
land or towns cannot be saved a fact
that can frustrate scientists in the
Philippines they have warned people that
we'll take at least ten years for many of the areas around
Mount Pinatubo to stabilize. >>Well we just draw
the hazard map and show people that these
are the possible places that may be
impacted by lahars, but as volcanologists,
we cannot control people as long as
we tell them that that is a possibility
and people are willing to take the
risk, then so be it. The best thing
really is to move people away from the source of the hazard but that's easier said than
done. >>In communities like
Poroc, the population of 72,000 have
suffered ever since June 15 in 1991. >>I thought it was
the end of the world there were thunders there
were earthquake those were
simultaneous. There were rains with mud and
buildings collapsing businesses were
closed and houses are full of sand. >>As bad as it seemed then
things got worse after the major eruptions the town
continued to be plagued by mud flows from
1991 through 1993 around 600 homes
were destroyed in Peroc alone and
about 500 acres of land right along the
riverbanks were lost. >>it's just since
1991 we've been agonizing considering the loss
of livelihood and loss of source of
income. The wait and see attitude for
almost five years estimated our
economy it's only after 1996 did we think of going back
growing and developing. >>The jungles around Pinatubo
have been home to an Aboriginal people
called the Aeatas for centuries living off
the land on the mountain's remote slopes
thier's was a way of life time had passed
by. >>We are going to the village of
Aeatas and the main problem there now is
poverty and many many of the Aeatas are
hungry and malnourished we have no food to
eat because their habitat which is
the mountain, reduced of land where
it is to hunt they were all destroyed by
the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. >>The eruptions forced the
Aeatas to leave their mountain retreats and live
at least briefly in resettlement
areas life among city dwellers proves hard
for them here everything is foreign and
with no formal education they cannot
find jobs to support themselves and often
become targets of discrimination. >>They don't like to mix with
the non-Aeatas because they have their own culture their own
tradition yea they cannot live normally with the other other
people. >>This is why most returned to
the mountains as soon as they could
yet here too only hardship seems to await them. >>They are having
much difficulty now especially their food specially
during this rainy season they do not have food to eat though they have plants but
their plants have not produced very well. They have no problems
about their foods before Pinatubo erupted because they planted and the harvest
there's vegetables so they have plenty
of food to eat and they can even send
some of them. ... in Jesus name we pray amen
>>Reverend Wilson and his wife Cora and have been working
with the Aeatas since before the mountain erupted
their long-term commitment has won the
trust of many tribal members. >>He
will be staying with us coming here just
reading his experience is only ready
when you and I told him Solomon. >>The Wilsons believe that the
Aeatas future lies with their children
that is why they run a school especially
for them. >>It's them and nurture
them not only the ways of the Lord but also
teach them how to read how to write how to
compute and then later on they will be
the one to come out and then teach their own people they will
be the one to minister to their own
people and in that way the other people
will be improved in their life. >>It's hard for adults to change
the way they view the world this
mountain is the home of their people and better
or worse they wish to stay here but like
parents the world-over they also wish
for a better life for their children. >>She realized that they made
themselves parents haven't gone to school
and they don't want them to be like them. >>In a foreign capital we
are praying the Lord will help them to have
their own life view so that they can
support themselves there are no jobs the
mountain is destroyed by the heart the hunting ground
there were no more wild animals to hunt they were all
gone so life becomes very very hard for
the Aeatas. >>Along with the resettlement
camps the government is building some
sediment dams to try and protect people
in the valleys but this government does
not have the same resources as the
Japanese and the areas being impacted are on
a much larger scale than those around
Shimabara. >>Rright now we are only dealing with three river systems
it used to be nine now it's only three so we can concentrate
resources to this river channels. >>But for the
most part the timetable for recovery here is
one that mother nature dictates and it is
one that people on the west coast of
the United States could someday face
as well. >>You see some vulcanologists
would be classifying volcanoes as long
sleepers in other words they they have
not done anything during the past 100 200
300 years and volcanoes of the type
would tend to have big explosions when
they erupt like Pinatubo stayed quiet
for about 400 years and after that
it gave a big blow so something like that
may happen in some volcanoes in the
Cascades. >>If there is one volcano in the
Cascades that concern scientists the most
it is Mount Rainier its massive size
steep slopes and snow-covered peak,
create such an image that the hundreds
of thousands who live around it
wait in anticipation to catch sight of
it on a clear day yet it is the very
same features that worried scientists
and their concerns are based on
experience. >>In 1985 there was a large
ice-covered volcano similar to Mount Rainier
in Colombia that erupted it's name
is Nevada del Ruiz it produced a
relatively small eruption that melted lots
of snow and ice and produced very large
volume mud flows. >>At Nevada del Ruiz over 23,000
people died as they were swept away by
mud flows a tiny eruption on a
snow-covered volcano makes a lot of water the
water rushes down the volcano
volcanoes are composed of loose debris the
debris is included in this flood and it
turns into this wall of flowing concrete
it's moving and perhaps forty to
sixty miles an hour and it comes tearing
down the valleys basically just consuming
and engulfing everything in its
path. >>We view Mount Rainier as an
analogue to Nevada del Ruiz, it's a snow and ice covered volcano it erupts
relatively frequently it has deep valleys
leading away from it and there are now
tens of thousands of people living in
those Valley bottoms on deposits from
old mud flows. >>One Valley community
located closest to Mount Rainier is
named Orting it has a population of about
3,000 and growing the city itself is
situated on an island of sorts. >>The city
itself is in a flat very flat area between
the two rivers of the Puyallup and the
Carbon, but what we are sitting on is a
mud flow that was generated
from Mt. Rainer. >>If Rainier generated a
mud flow now evacuating this town would be difficult this issue recently came to
light in Orting because of a Washington
State law called the land use
management Act it requires communities with
identified hazards to have an evacuation
plan the information gained while
developing one for Orting has caused some of
the town's officials to take the threat of
mud flows more seriously. Orting's
evacuation plan is now based on what they
think would be a worst case scenario. >>The timeframe in which
it could impact the city varies from 40 minutes to
two hours there's a lot of variables and
on what would slow it down but the worst
case scenario is a 40-foot wall of
mud right where we're standing right at
this point. >>One problem the town would
face during an evacuation is traffic jams
there are only two roads leading out of
harm's way and they both cross bridges. Another
concern is that Orting's current warning system consists of a
single siren at the fire station unless
more are added there is no way the
entire community would even be able to
hear an alarm. >>What people need to do
is when the evacuation warning system has been activated we need to just pack
up their family and follow the evacuation
route that's been prescribed to their
area and do just what it says because
if you try to do anything other than
that you could complicate the entire
evacuation plan. >>This is why he says now
is the time for residents to learn what to
do if they wait until there is an
actual emergency it will be too late. >>What they really need to understand is
that they are on their own there there are
no public agencies there to help
them that if they are told or given the
indication that they have to leave the city
they have to leave the city and they
will not get any assistance from us if
you don't have a car make arrangements
with your neighbors to pick you have them
pick you up have them come over and get
you but these are things you have to do
because we are not available we have our
own problems we have to get out as
well. >>Some residents are
critical of the attention talk of needing better warning
systems has brought to Orting, they feel
their community is being hurt by
negative publicity over something that
may never even happen. >>I'm in the real
estate business and the concern I have
is as you're forgetting about the
small town atmosphere how nice our town is
here how the community we have a real
good community and it's all that's
been forgotten because of the
mountain and my family lived here for since the
40s if I didn't think it was safe I
wouldn't be here. >>They also want people to
realize that if Orting is in trouble so
are a lot of other communities located
in the lowlands around Mount Rainier
Orting, Orting, Orting that's all you ever hear in the media is Orting, and
what I want to see is the whole picture
shown of from the tide flats from the
east from the Enumclaw all the other
places for the mud flow or whatever
would happen could happen this is not
Orting. >>It is not just Orting in the past Mount Rainier has
generated mud flows that have traveled all
the way to Puget Sound so any community
that inhabits a valley leading away
from the mountain lies in the path of
potential danger. >>Unfortunately the information
that scientists have passed along to
public officials about the nature and
volume and character of mud flows at
Mount Rainier is accurate and that is
to say that the volumes of mud that
have been involved in past mud flows at
Mount Rainier are truly colossal in
size and mud flows have filled some
valleys to depths of a thousand feet or
more as they pass through the valley it
sort of passes through the valley like a
giant wave and so after the wave goes
down Valley it leaves a deposit
smeared onto the valley sides and in the
valley bottom sometimes quite thick
tens of feet thick. >>If a flow is
generated by an eruption geologists are
confident there will be prior warning warnings
that can be detected by the Pacific
Northwest seismographic Network based at
the University of Washington the
network is comprised of 135 seismograph
stations that cover most of Washington
and Oregon to monitor earthquakes one-third
of these stations are specifically
testing volcanoes so unless Mother
Nature throws a curve this equipment will help
provide advanced warning to volcanic
activity. >>Which means that in general I
feel anyway that almost always you
will get some type of earthquake
precursory signals before an eruption
occurs inevitably when the the magma
comes up into the volcano it must break
rock and the breaking of the rock is what
an earthquake is, we record those
and if we're clever enough we can
interpret that in terms of how much magma
how long will it take to come here what are the chances of it being explosive or
not and we've gotten good enough that in
many cases we've been able to warn
populations ahead of time and alert the civil authorities
etc to actually save lots of lives >>Saving lives is what Bill Lokey's job is all
about ...I would love to get on
there... >>The Pierce County Department of Emergency
Management is responsible for disaster planning how to
reduce the potential and how to train people what to do
when it happens, it coordinates all the
different agencies that are thrust together in emergency
situations. >>In volcano hazards are
some of the hardest ones to deal with because they
represent what could be the most
catastrophic disaster to ever occur in this
country and yet it things like that
occur on such infrequent intervals to the
tens of thousands of years that it's
hard for people to grasp what's going on
so we have information ready to go
about volcanoes and depending on what
happens if something starts going right
now St Helen's, we can start a
vigorous public education program so
people will understand what's going on and
be able to respond better to it. >>Emergency plans concerning volcanoes in the
northwest rely heavily on having advanced
warning that something is about to
happen at the mountain agencies say other
budgetary priorities make it hard for them
to keep readiness at the highest level
possible especially when the event in
question may not occur for years to come. >>I can't afford to have a
flood plan, a volcano plan hazardous materials plan
search and rescue plan you know space
invasion plan all these imminence like that we
have an emergency plan that accommodates
getting organized to respond with information to emergencies our main primary
purpose in government is to be the most
good for the most people and so if we
have a plan that approaches is on a
community basis if we have warning like Mount
St. Helens gave us we can do tremendous
amount of things to save a lot of lives
and property and get people out of the way, and reroute traffic
and things like that. If we have no warning the best
we can do is do the best we can to get
people out of the way. >>The most
geologists say the odds are low it is possible that landslides or mud flows at
mountains like Rainier can occur without
warning. >>It's possible that a major
collapse or a plank slope collapse of Mount
Ranier could be either spontaneous no
warning whatsoever or triggered by a
local earthquake geologists tell us
there's evidence in the deposits now
that this has occurred in the past. It's
hard to judge what the chances of that
how likely that is to another case
currently we're actually thinking about
warning systems that could give maybe a
half an hour's worth of warning should
such a thing occur the technology
exists to do that it's a matter of funding to
put it in place training and
maintenance all of which are very significant
issues not to mention the social issue of is
that even a wise thing to do? >>This debate is treated differently city to city
and county to county pierce county
has begun to restrict development in areas
that could be at risk to volcanic
activity yet the incorporated cities
within the county have less stringent rules allowing for more development. >>From a public policy
standpoint, I can't fault them, I mean when you when
the vitality of your community is based on some
development what's reasonable and that we
were to shut development down in some of
these towns, they would die on the
vine and then nothing happens in 10,000 years
you know what good have we done you know
but something too you know the
investments if you never have a wreck in your
car what a waste of money that car
insurance was but just in case something
happens it was good to have it so each
jurisdiction gets to decide what is
reasonable for them. >>What is reasonable this
can be difficult to determine
especially when the possibility of an eruption appears unlikely
however America's neighbors just south
of the border are dealing with these
very same questions on a daily basis and
they are far from hypothetical. Since
1994 Popocatepetl located in central Mexico, has been living up to
its name producing small and
medium sized eruptions. >>Actually the name
of Popocatepetl derives from this activity. Popocatepetl means the smoking
mountain in the aztec language so not this is a common
phenomena. >>But at times Popocatepetl
has done more than just clear its throat. >>We can distinguish
extremely violent eruptions probably
comparable to that of Pinatubo or maybe
even larger. >>Despite the fact that Popo and
many smaller volcanoes in this area
have been active since even before the
Aztecs started calling them by name the
heart of Mexican civilization is
located just 30 miles away. The pulse of the country's
culture echoes through its capital
Mexico City from the Aztecs to the Spanish
to the present federal government this
has been the seat of power. About 20
million people live here and in large part they
consider themselves beyond the reach of
poco's power prevailing winds have made
ash fall on this city streets
uncommon during Popocatepetl's current
activities but for others living closer to
the mountains dealing with ash has
become a nuisance of everyday life. Since
the area surrounding Popocatepetl is
heavily populated the mountain is
monitored very closely the job of tracking what
is happening here belongs to the
National Center for the Prevention of
disasters known as Cenopred. Cenopred
fills a similar role as that of the
USGS, it's people collect and analyze data
from the volcano they then pass on their
information to the government agencies that must decide
if and when evacuations are required the fact that the
mountain could be active for years to
come makes the need for accurate in-depth information on what the volcano
might do next vital. >>This activity could last for
years so it is not a threat over days that
it easy to take a decision in this case
to evacuate and then when it is
finish you can bring people back but this
could last maybe 10 years. >>Hazard
maps have been developed to help identify
which areas are most susceptible to
the mountains activity. >>It was
decided to make a hazard plan in order to
detect all the ways out that includes
for example in the this inner circle
here 30 communities and we're talking
about 100,000 people just in that if
you go farther to this level or this
one here what you're talking about a
million people more or less so the
problem we could have in the Popocatepetl
has an eruption it's a very big so
where we are working with the federal state
and municipal authorities in order
to to make this plan work. >>And this
process does not end when a hazard plan
is in place. >>A plan like this is
never ended it's never finished so you have
to work every day the roads for example
that before the rainy season are all
right within four months you have to
repair them so you're never quite ready
you have to be pushing this program
every time. >>Evacuations have taken
place at one point when 50,000 people
were removed from a hazard area it
took about nine hours and then people were
not allowed to return to their homes
for five days a fact that does not sit well with
most villagers. Trying to predict how the public
will respond to emergency situations
can be a difficult as determining what
the mountain might do. Well they
have been living there for centuries
especially the old people are very tied to
their land and what they produce so
it's not too easy to ask them to leave
their homeland but I think that the
young people are very aware of the of
the danger and I would say that 99%
the people know what to do but of
course it has been done with basically an
order otherwise it could be more
dangerous. >>The best way to ensure
discipline and order during an emergency is to
make sure that the people have
received prior education about what to expect
and how to respond. >>I would say that the the better you understand the
problem the better prepared you are to deal
with it. >>The government has used
everything from traveling displays to the media
and pamphlets to try and educate
residents as to what they should do before
during and after an eruption it has also devised a method of
keeping communities informed on the
mountain status on a moment-to-moment
basis the concept is called the traffic
light alert system lights or colored
flags are displayed continuously in the
towns surrounding the mountain. >>If
it's green there is no problem, if it is
yellow you must remain alert and living
communicated and try to know how to going on and if the traffic
light change to red means something really
serious going on and then you have to to
do whatever you are told but for
instance leaving your town. >>The system's simple design
is meant to eliminate misinterpretation of
the information but it is not a
perfect solution. >>We have been in the
yellow conditions since 1994 now who
and how it decides how to change color in
either direction well that's a another
difficult problem. >>Under current circumstances the Mexican government feels it
is doing everything it can to protect its
citizens however most people involved
with the process admit the system is not infallible to improve upon it
they say they need the help of
individuals. >>Normally, Society says that
the government is obliged to inform which is
right but I think that we have to make a
consort with the people and they have to go and get the
information in the agencies that are
set up for so I think that's the best advice not wait
for the government to inform you, you
have to go and ask for information
and maybe you can save your life. >>This attitude is one shared by
officials and geologists alike the world over. >>As we learn more we're able to
better anticipate when a volcano is reawakening and the
types and scales interruptions that it
might have but we can't with our tools
sanitize the world for your protection there
are some places where where people simply
should not build their houses and
certainly not critical facilities or if they
do so they should be prepared to lose
those when volcano reawakens. >>I
think the bottom line is that there are a
number of volcanoes in the Cascade
Range that could go from a quiet state such
as they are at right now into a
full-blown eruption within a few days
warning those of us who live in the Cascade
Range or near the range who are involved
in some way have to be prepared and we
have to anticipate the kinds of things
that will happen and we have to make
preparations now while we have time. >>Though these images are from
far-off lands they need not be one look
at St. Helen should serve as a reminder
that everyone along America's West
Coast could soon be forced to deal
with a similar situation for within each of
these giant beauties there is a sleeping
beast, and you can't enjoy the company of one
without possibly meeting the other when
it wakes.
