America’s Most Dangerous Volcano Threat Doesn’t Need an Eruption !

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:02]The laahar reaches the town of Ordin in about 50 minutes.

[00:00:15]Washington State, Mount Reineer, Mount St. Helens, volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, but something way worse.

[00:00:26]I'm throwing this at you guys. It sounds crazy and it is. No notice laars could reach you without a warning and you have not much evacuation time. Scientists are absolutely in fear of that. You could quickly become trapped of something that is coming down on you hundreds of feet high like a monster tsunami. Mount Reneer keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities.

[00:01:04]Tacoma and South Seattle are built on 100 ft thick ancient mud flows from eruptions of Mount Reneer from millions of years ago.

[00:01:16]The summit is very cold, lots of snow, glaciers, ice, and when it eventually erupts, that is all going to melt very quickly and head towards these towns below.

[00:01:27]>> A monster tsunami like something that we've seen in the Tracy arm fjord, maybe hundreds of feet high into an area with 150,000 residents. What am I talking about? You will probably think about Mount St. Helens when I tell you the headline, but I tell you, you're wrong. Yes, we're in the right state. We're talking about Washington State in the US, but we are talking about Mount Reneer. Did you know that this is America's most dangerous volcano that could devastate 60,000 people in minutes and shortly after 150,000 in total? And when I tell you with what, it's absolutely crazy because if you're in the Seattle area and if you're in this highly densely populated area, you see that volcano from everywhere. It thrones over properties, realtors. This is a selling point.

[00:02:30]You've got Mount Reneer views. And I always I mean I know about that.

[00:02:35]Whenever I see these listings and you see Mount Reneer so close, I'm like, "Whoa, guys, you don't want to be there." And I have to tell you, there's no research. It is bad. I have to tell you. So, scientists are warning now that the threat that is coming from America's most dangerous volcano um is very, very bad. Three Washington towns could be devastated within minutes if a massive volcanic mud flow suddenly tears down Mount Reinei Alahar. And for Alahar, we do not need a volcanic eruption. That is the danger. But the danger here is this could happen at any time without a warning. That's why this can be so devastating.

[00:03:27]It is threatening directly 60,000 residents and growing that are living in the direct laahar zones. So laahars are fastm moving very very fastm moving volcanic mud flows that are capable of obliterating entire communities even without an eruption when water rapidly mixes with loose rock ash debris on slopes of a volcano. So scientists are warning us right now that landslides heavy rainfall and it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest. heavy rainfall, melting glaciers, and there's a lot of glacier on that volcano or even small earthquakes and there's a lot of small earthquakes underneath the volcano around the volcano. We're at the ring of fire, Pacific Ring of Fire, big subduction zone there. This could destabilize part of the volcano unleashing a sudden torrent of mud, rock and debris from or down the surrounding river valleys. So the a geoysicist that has worked for the cascades volcano observatory Andy Lockhart has told us or is telling us that Puup, I know I pronounced this wrong.

[00:04:55]Sorry guys, and Sumner. These three settlements, and they're growing, sit directly in the path of a potential catastrophe that could strike with little or no warning. And I have been in these communities. I have visited friends in Oring up the mountain slope, beautiful equestrian property that they had there looking at the horses. But then you see I said to them, "Hey, that volcano looks awfully close. So aren't you worrying that if that thing erupts that you could like be in the direct path and it was like between oring and the volcano then there was like forest but yes it felt dangerous. I felt uneasy and I I didn't feel good there. I felt threatened by Mount Reneer. I have to be honest. So the path of a potential catastrophe could strike with little or no warning.

[00:05:55]That is the risk there. So researchers are especially worried about Mount Reneer because roughly 150,000 people in Washington's Pierce County live within projected LAR zones. And I have interviewed people. I've asked people.

[00:06:14]Many of them have no idea. They have no idea. You look at the beautiful real estate listings and it's nice, but the danger I said recently to a friend, they said, "Oh, isn't this beautiful there?

[00:06:27]Who wouldn't want to live there?" And I said, "I wouldn't. Do you know that you're directly in the Laar zone? What?

[00:06:36]What are you talking about?" I'm like, sent them the map. I said, "Look at this." And they're like, "Oh, we didn't know that." So Reineer, it's only 60 miles from Seattle. It is heavily covered in glaciers and a lot of unstable volcanic rock conditions where experts say create the perfect setup for catastrophic mud flows. And they recently had basically a mudflow rehearsal where students in schools had to evacuate and found their ways out of the danger zone and they only had a few minutes to run to do that. And they have sensors along river valleys where they could sense if the laahar passes the sensor warning systems could go on but it gives you a very very little warning because if that laar is on its way it's so it's so scaringly fast. So, a volcano a volcanologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico um has told the press just recently that laars are especially dangerous because there are this complex phenomena that charge a lot during transport. They can grow and they can dilute. So, one of the largest laars in US history occurred, yeah, thousands of years ago. But guess what?

[00:08:07]Guess where? Where did it occur? It occurred when part of Mount Reinei collapsed and it has unleashed the massive how it was called Oicola mudflow. So scientists now these days estimate that that mud flow carried enough debris to fill roughly listen to that number 1.5 million Olympicsized swimming pools 1.5 million more than 220 miles towards the Puget Sound. and that this mud flow has buried parts of what are now the Enclaw and Kent valleys. Lots of people living there. So the deadliest modern US usahar also struck in the 1980s during the eruption of Mount St. Helens. That's why I said in the beginning most of you think about that right when the volcano's collapsing north flank and pyrolastic flows rapidly melted glacial ice and everything came down. So the resulting torrents of mud and debris surged more than 60 miles through the total and colets river valleys has destroyed at Mount St. talent over 200 homes and 195 miles of roads and 27 bridges. So the danger of Laahar in Washington has become so alarming right now that emergency officials now conduct massive evacuation drills designed to prepare residents for a disaster um that many scientists believe is inevitable. it will happen. And more than 45,000 students, I mentioned it earlier, and staff from over 20 schools participated in one of the world's largest LAAR evacuation exercises last year in April and they have practiced evacuations to higher ground while officials, public officials, emergency officials have tested warning systems. So um the scientists are telling us that these drills underscore a very grim reality for residents in this area. Another catastrophic laahar in the Pacific Northwest is not considered a distant possibility. That is the sad part. And what terrifies the researchers the most is the possibility of a no notice laahar. This is what they call it which would happen without an eruption and without a major earthquake. So without a warning and that is ter terrifying right. So everything from landslides and crater lake failures to severe storms and heavy rainfalls has triggered deadly laars around the world. We know that. And scientists now say that a sudden collapse of Reneer's western flank could send a torrent directly towards Ording Sumner and Puop in as little as 30 minutes. 30 minutes. So they said the threat is deeply unsettling the researchers. They say no notice laars and that's a quote. the thing that goes bump in the night, it's creeping us out. This is what they're saying. Um, emergency planners fear that Oring could face some of the greatest danger because of its limited evacuation routes and the growing population development of townhouse, apartment complexes. It's everywhere there. It's huge.

[00:12:08]If roads become clogged with traffic during a sudden evacuation, residents could quickly become trapped inside the Laahar zone. And that's the worst thing, right? Panic spreads and then the roads are clogged. So scientists are warning that by the time that the mudflow reaches the populated communities, it could be, listen to this, hundreds of feet high and moving with crushing force. This is crazy. The threat has sparked decades of scientific research that is aimed at improving warning systems before another disaster will strike. And the Cascades Volcano Observatory has built an extensive network of monitoring stations around Mount Reineer so to track seismic activity and detect possible LAARS in real time. And researchers have also spent years recreating Laahar basically in a giant experimental flume in Oregon's HG Andrews experimental forest in order to better understand how these deadly mud flows travel and how they intensify down the road. They take everything with them. I mean, we've seen Blutton last year. This is how you have to imagine this. how fast the glacier and then the mountain and everything with it, the logs, the everything that was there came down the mountain. The data they feed them into computer models that help predict how quickly the hars could hit communities and how much evacuation time residents might have.

[00:13:51]And that is what frightens them so much because it's not much. That's the problem. And of course they acknowledge that there's still enormous uncertainty surrounding no notice laahar because then they can occur without clear warning signs. So all the instrument instruments don't help you if you have no warning sign no earthquake nothing right. Um, of course, researchers are also concerned that the danger could be intensified by destabilizing glaciers and that would increase the likelihood. Um, but also severe storms that could trigger these sudden mud flows. So, if you live in the area, if you know someone in the in the area, tell them, show them the maps, tell them, do you know about this?

[00:14:42]Right? Or if you want to move there or buy property, check this out. Beware.

[00:14:47]And you know, we're Cascadia fault. So you can get a laahar from inland. You can get a tsunami from the shore and you can get the big one underneath you. So there are a lot of threats despite the stunning beauty of this area, right? We have to be aware of that. So guys, but there's a lot of other stuff going on that I want to show you. There's a storm coming in that can turn into a monster for Japan, for Taiwan, for the Philippines. Check it out in the end screen. But that volcano or whatever it is, I'm not spoiling that, that erupted in a backyard in front of a stable of a home in Mexico, also crazy. Check it out. I see you there in a second. Stay safe. Bye-bye.