Short Story- Lahar by Craig Zimmerman

For centuries, Mount Rainier stood quiet, but over the years acidic water flow within the volcano weakened the rock that supported the massive summit of the mountain.

On one ordinary Monday afternoon, a massive earthquake shook the mountain and the weakened summit collapsed. Millions of tons of mud, snow, ice, and rock poured down the slopes of Rainier.

The earthquake did considerable damage to the roads and buildings of the small town of  Orting which was directly in the path of the mud flow now moving at 40 miles an hour. 

Thanks to an early warning system, Orting authorities immediately began an evacuation, but it wasn't easy moving thousands of residents away from the danger on damaged and already congested roads.

A few miles to the west was the much larger city of Puyallup. Even in the best of times, Puyallup has heavy traffic, now panicked Orting residents created instant traffic jams.

Less then an hour after the earthquake, the mud flow reached Orting crushing everything in its path. The city of Puyallup was now chaos with everyone trying to flee at once. Some people simply left their cars and started running away from the mud flow.

After burying Orting, the lahar slowed somewhat, but it still had enough energy to obliterate downtown Puyallup.  The mud flow continued on until it reached the Port of Tacoma and finally stopped not far from the Puget Sound.

A swath of destruction more then 50 miles long and 20 miles wide was left by the Lahar.