Mt. Rainier is Rumbling--Are We Doomed?

There was a small earthquake at Mt. Rainier, and the question that leaps immediately to mind is whether we will all soon be flash-cooked alive like the residents of Pompeii or something.

The last major geologic event at Mt. Rainier was about 5,000 years ago: the Osceola Mudflow, when the top 1,600 feet of the mountain went on a day trip to Puget Sound. If such an event happened again, Wikipedia doesn't like our chances:

According to Geoff Clayton, a geologist with RH2, a repeat of the Osceola mudflow would destroy Enumclaw, Kent, Auburn, and most or all of Renton. Such a mudflow may also reach down the Duwamish estuary and destroy parts of downtown Seattle, and (speculatively) may cause tsunamis in Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

So should we start stocking up of mudflow-proof fleece? "No," is the answer, says the P-I. They asked some wisen-heimer professor type, who seems to think we've got plenty of time before a catastrophic eruption, but considering he works for the UW, we'd take that with a grain of salt.

People can't even predict baseball games accurately, and those happen practically every damn day. Eruptions are a once in a millennium experience.

Therefore, Seattlest advises a program of mass sacrifices until the mountain gods are appeased.