The Bridge for Kids is a proposed bridge across the

Carbon River The Carbon River is a river in the U.S. state of Washington. It flows about 30 miles (48 km) from its source, the Carbon Glacier on Mount Rainier, to join the Puyallup River at Orting. Charles Wilkes called the river the "Upthascap River", ...

Orting Orting is a city in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 9,041 at the 2020 census. History The first recorded claims for land in Orting were made in 1854 by William Henry Whitesell, Thomas Headley, Daniel Lane, and D ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, about a mile upstream of where it joins the

Puyallup River The Puyallup River ( ) is a river in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. About long, it is formed by glaciers on the west side of Mount Rainier. It flows generally northwest, emptying into Commencement Bay, part of Puget Sound. The ...

. It would provide an emergency evacuation route for school children to escape a future

lahar A lahar (, from jv, ꦮ꧀ꦭꦲꦂ) is a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley. Lahars are extreme ...

flow from

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...

, consisting of an up to high flood of mud, rock and boulders. , the $40 million bridge was still in the planning phase.

Background

Lahars from the

Cascade Volcanoes The Cascade Volcanoes (also known as the Cascade Volcanic Arc or the Cascade Arc) are a number of volcanoes in a volcanic arc in western North America, extending from southwestern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern Califo ...

are historically common. Orting is situated in the floodplain of the Puyallup River and on top of the debris field of past lahars from Mount Rainier, including the

Osceola Mudflow The Osceola Mudflow, also known as the Osceola Lahar, was a lahar in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington that descended from the summit and northeast slope of Mount Rainier during a period of eruptions about 5,600 years ago. It tr ...

. The Osceola Mudflow followed an eruption 5,600 years ago that left a horseshoe-shaped crater in Mount Rainier comparable to that of the

1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens On March 27, 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major explosive eru ...

and deposited debris across a area as far as Commencement Bay on Puget Sound. Another event, the Electron Mudflow, produced a lahar that was deep when it reached the Puget Sound lowland. The current lahar risk is considered extremely high in Orting, with an estimated one in seven chance of a catastrophic event in a resident's lifetime.

Land use planning Land use planning is the process of regulating the use of land by a central authority. Usually, this is done to promote more desirable social and environmental outcomes as well as a more efficient use of resources. More specifically, the goals ...

and

emergency management Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...

in Orting differs from that in surrounding Pierce County, allowing development and location of schools in this area. The

Mount Rainier Volcano Lahar Warning System The Mount Rainier Volcano Lahar Warning System consists of two separate components, operating in tandem: Acoustic Flow Monitors (AFM) and the All Hazard Alert Broadcast (AHAB) sirens. The AFM system was developed by the United States Geological Surv ...

has existed since 2000 to give residents in high-risk areas some advance warning of an approaching lahar, but evacuation drills in Orting have shown that motorized transportation (

school bus A school bus is any type of bus owned, leased, contracted to, or operated by a school or school district. It is regularly used to transport students to and from school or school-related activities, but not including a charter bus or transit bus ...

es) is not a viable option for removing students from the lahar zone due to road congestion and time factors. Evacuation planning at Orting schools started in 1995, and it was then that the insufficiency of infrastructure began to be an issue. , drills were showing student evacuation times via an existing foot route to still be in excess of the notification window.

Bridge design

A yearlong design process was started by Pierce County in consultation with

Washington State Department of Transportation The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT or WashDOT, both ) is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. Establi ...

and other agencies and a citizens' group in January, 2009, after considering other evacuation means such as pathways and a tunnel under the river. The bridge would be wide and accommodate 12,000 people in 30 minutes. Orting is estimated to have a 40 minute evacuation window after the Mount Rainier Volcano Lahar Warning System is activated. Preliminary design renderings from 2014 show a pedestrian

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

with stairsteps approaching a lower pier, and another pier higher on a ridge above Orting, near the community of Tehaleh. Part of the bridge deck would contain stairs and lie at a 40%

slope In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line is a number that describes both the ''direction'' and the ''steepness'' of the line. Slope is often denoted by the letter ''m''; there is no clear answer to the question why the letter ''m'' is use ...

References

{{reflist, 30em, refs= {{citation, title=Significant Lahars at Mount Rainier: Osceola Mudflow, publisher=United States Geological Survey, date=November 10, 2014, url=https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount_rainier/mount_rainier_geo_hist_79.html, quote=Lahars are common at Mount Rainier... {{citation, date=October 25, 2014, title=Politicians, scientists, local leaders revisit Orting's Bridge for Kids at summit , author=Kari Plog, newspaper=

Tacoma News Tribune ''The News Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Tacoma, Washington. It is the second-largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington with a weekday circulation of 30,945 in 2020. With origins dating back to 1883, the newspaper w ...

, url=http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article25889329.html {{citation, title=Bridge for Kids Fact Sheet, publisher=Washington State Department of Transportation, year=2009, url=http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/A451CD37-242E-490D-A11E-B608006C2A10/60482/BridgeForKidsFactSheet.pdf, access-date=2016-08-01, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203144241/http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/A451CD37-242E-490D-A11E-B608006C2A10/60482/BridgeForKidsFactSheet.pdf, archive-date=2017-02-03, url-status=dead {{citation, title=Paths of Destruction: The Hidden Threat at Mount Rainier , author=Lisa M. Pinsker, work=Geotimes, publisher=American Geological Institute, date=April 2004, url=http://www.geotimes.org/apr04/feature_MountRainier.html {{citation, title=Parents near Mount Rainier fight for bridge to escape deadly lahar, author=John Hopperstad, date=June 1, 2016 , publisher= Q-13 Fox, format=Television news, location=Tacoma, Washington, url=http://q13fox.com/2016/06/01/parents-near-mount-rainier-fight-for-bridge-to-escape-deadly-lahar/ {{citation, title=Orting unveils plans for Bridge for Kids at Emergency Summit , work=Pierce County News, format=Cable television program, date=October 30, 2014, publisher=Pierce County, Washington, url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wGPfIU9j0I 6:00–7:00 {{citation, title=Orting Emergency Evacuation Bridge Design, type=blueprint, author=Pierce County, Washington, author2=BergerABAM, name-list-style=amp, year=2014, via=bridge4kids.org, url=http://www.bridge4kids.org/images/2012-Hearing-Graphic-P10-lg.jpg {{citation, title=A synthesis of challenges and opportunities for reducing volcanic risk through land use planning in New Zealand § Potential for reducing volcanic risk through land use planning: Case studies from USA, Japan and New Zealand, journal=The Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, author=Julia S. Becker, author2=Wendy S.A. Saunders, author3=Clare M. Robertson, author4=Graham S. Leonard, author5=David M. Johnston, ISSN=1174-4707, date=January 2010, volume=2010-1 , url=http://www.massey.ac.nz/~trauma/issues/2010-1/becker.htm {{citation, title=Town waiting for an eruption found it after firing its first black police officer , author=Eli Saslow , date=April 18, 2015, newspaper=

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

, url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-tiny-orting-wash-a-foundational-shift/2015/04/18/14e1e098-dc6e-11e4-acfe-cd057abefa9a_story.html, quote=Life for Orting's 8,000 residents depended on predicting what would one day come roaring down the slopes of Mount Rainier, 30 miles away. They had sirens for lava, sensors for earthquakes and alarms for the volcanic mudflow that geologists believed would one day bury the town. {{citation, newspaper=The News Tribune, location=Tacoma, title=Report: Mount Rainier lahar could cause $13 billion in property damages, author=Steve Maynard, date=June 6, 2012, url=http://blog.thenewstribune.com/street/2012/06/06/report-mount-rainier-lahar-could-cause-6-billion-in-property-damages/, quote=Mount Rainier has produced major lahars every 500 to 1,000 years and smaller flows more frequently. The most recent major lahar to reach the Puget Lowland was the Electron Mudflow about 600 years ago. It was more than 100 feet thick at the community of Electron and as much as 20 feet thick at Orting., access-date=September 4, 2016, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915101354/http://blog.thenewstribune.com/street/2012/06/06/report-mount-rainier-lahar-could-cause-6-billion-in-property-damages/, archive-date=September 15, 2016, url-status=dead

External links

Bridge For Kids organization
Graham, Washington Proposed bridges in the United States Pedestrian bridges in Washington (state) Bridges in Pierce County, Washington Bridges over the Puyallup River Suspension bridges in Washington (state)

Background

Bridge design

See also

References

External links