page_title: Bridge for Kids
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Bridge for Kids / Background
context_page_description: The Bridge for Kids is a proposed bridge across the Carbon River in Orting, Washington, about a mile upstream of where it joins the Puyallup River. It would provide an emergency evacuation route for school children to escape a future lahar flow from Mount Rainier, consisting of an up to 10-meter high flood of mud, rock and boulders. As of 2016, the $40 million bridge was still in the planning phase.
context_section_description: Lahars from the Cascade Volcanoes 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 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 and deposited debris across a 212-square-mile (550 km²) area as far as Commencement Bay on Puget Sound. Another event, the Electron Mudflow, produced a lahar that was 30 meters (98 ft) 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 and emergency management 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 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 buses) 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. As of 2016, drills were showing student evacuation times via an existing 2 miles (3.2 km) foot route to still be in excess of the notification window.
caption: Historic mudflows from Mount Rainier