How the tragedy of Columbia's Nevado del Ruiz could save lives in the Puyallup valley, and beyond

Carolyn Driedger, hydrologist and outreach coordinator for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), found her calling through tragedy.

It was Saturday, May 17 and she was working at Coldwater Ridge, only a few miles north of Mt. St. Helens with colleague David Johnston. She had intended on spending the night at the camp, but Johnston encouraged her to go home, get some rest, and come back in the morning.

The next morning, at 8:32, Johnston’s final words, “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!” blared over the radio as St. Helens unleashed her fury.

It was Johnston’s sacrifice, and the death of another colleague, Harry Glicken, in a pyroclastic flow during an eruption of another volcano in Japan a decade later (after narrowly escaping death on St. Helens himself) that infused a passion within Driedger to warn others of the power and potential dangers of the volcanos they reside near.

“Those guys [Johnston and Glicken] can’t talk for themselves anymore, but we remain and can speak for them.”

It was this passion that brought her to the Bonney Lake branch of the Pierce County Library on the evening of May 7.

She and Chief Zane Gibson of Orting Valley Fire and Rescue shared their experience of an exchange and education trip to Columbia’s Nevado del Ruiz and the surrounding area.

An eruption on the slopes of that volcano triggered a massive lahar that killed several thousand people nearly thirty years ago, on November 13, 1985.

Before choosing a career in public safety, Gibson had originally wanted to be a geologist.

In fact, while attending high school in the Orting valley, his goal was to earn a Ph.D. in geology.

“It was 1984-85; right after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, so geology was considered cool,” he chuckled. “I was interested in geology before, but St. Helens certainly helped to encourage me in that direction.”

But color blindness prevented him from reading the topography maps of his day, and temporarily put a halt to his dream. A recent trip to Columbia breathed new life into Gibson’s first love.

“This trip to Columbia changed my life and reignited my passion for geology,” he said.

Having served in East Pierce Fire and Rescue for over thirty years, Gibson has brought his passion for both geology and public safety to Orting Valley Fire, where he has been serving as their fire chief since January 2013. This, in fact, is what brought him to Bonney Lake on the evening of May 7.

Gibson felt lucky to be one of those selected to go to Columbia and witness the aftermath of Nevado del Ruiz power and destruction, still visible nearly thirty years later.

Gibson spoke of his trip to the town of Amero, located only thirty miles from Nevado del Ruiz. What remains has the look and feel of a ghost town. Even from the pictures Gibson and others brought back, it’s difficult to imagine that a population of approximately 30,000 actually lived in the area.

He shared how the main path of the lahar was so destructive, that it scoured the land completely, all the way down to the bedrock. Scars on the land itself remain visible in the images Gibson and his colleagues recorded faithfully and shared willingly during the talk.

“Even the buildings, many of which were reinforced concrete – unlike our buildings, which are largely made out of wood,” he explained as he pounded the wall beside him, the dull thud reminding the audience of the delicacy of the structure “didn’t survive. They were wiped out completely. That’s how powerful the main thrust the lahar actually was.”

The town has since been rebuilt, in a new location not far from the original site, and appropriately christened New Amero. Here, the delegation found people who had survived the lahar that destroyed the original town. Some survivors lost as many as 32 members of their family in the tragedy.

Perhaps the saddest of all was the story of the mayor of New Amero. He was a six year-old boy when the lahar struck. 

Driedger relayed how he and his family, his mother and younger brother, heard a loud rumble. His mother opened the door to a massive wall of mud and debris that quickly engulfed them within their home. Then, holding tightly to each child, his mother fought her way through the mud and somehow escaped.

While he and his mother survived, his younger brother was lost when he was pulled from his mother’s grip by the powerful, swirling mud.

“Amero had a two hour window, from when to eruption occurred to when the lahar struck, and only a fifteen minute walk to safety,” Gibson recalled, a mix of passion and sadness in his voice. “The truth is no one had to die.”

Over 20,000 people around Nevado del Ruiz perished that evening, both in Amero and in communities around the volcano, because of lack of communication, preparedness, and a general unawareness of the danger the mountain truly possessed.

“People saw the ash eruption and thought that was it, the danger had already passed,” Driedger said. “No one really knew, or in some cases, wanted to know, of what could happen.”

Gibson and Driedger closed their talk with a word from the mayor, who has seen so much loss, as a warning to those of us living near our own Nevado del Ruiz.

“Believe it can happen here.”

This is the message, not one of fear, but one of preparedness and initiative, that both Carolyn Driedger, Zane Gibson, and all involved in the safety of the residents of Orting, Bonney Lake, and the surrounding community, hope to pass on in the years to come.

Driedger and Gibson are speaking again in Milton/Edgewood on Wednesday, May 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the South Hill branch on Thursday, May 15 at 7 p.m.