More than four years after a group of eighth-grade girls came up with the idea, Pierce County has put flashing lights on lahar evacuation signs in Orting.
In the event of a potentially catastrophic mudflow from Mount Rainier, two red LED lights would flash. The idea is to draw people’s attention to the signs, much like flashing yellow lights on a school zone marker.
“You see these signs all the time so you don’t notice them after a while,” said Sheri Badger, a spokeswoman for Pierce County Emergency Management. “The lights call attention to these signs.”
Pierce County installed the three new lahar signs with lights in December at a total cost of about $6,000. They replaced three volcano evacuation route signs and arrows in Orting that were located at roughly the same spots.
Alyssa Wolf and three other students at Brooklake Christian School in Federal Way came up with the potentially lifesaving idea. They worked with Sharon Gentry, their coach and former science teacher.
“She brought up the problem, and the four of us reasoned our way to having the lights,” said Wolf, now 18 and a freshman at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles.
The girls built a model sign with lights to compete for a $25,000 grant to carry out their project. The four gathered letters of support from Gov. Chris Gregoire and local leaders.
“We were just trying to make the route more visible so if there was an emergency, people would be able to get to safety in time,” Wolf said.
Wolf, then 13, was joined in the project by Jordyn Wintersole, Sara Yazdi and Hannah Zeitler.
They were among eight finalist teams but didn’t win the $25,000 grant awarded by the federal government’s Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation.
At that time, June 2007, Pierce County Emergency Management supported adding the lights to evacuation signs but didn’t have the money to do it.
Last year, the department finally found the funds.
“It was an awesome idea,” said Tom Sharp, alert and warning coordinator for Pierce County Emergency Management. “I wish we could have got it done sooner.”
Wolf, at home in Federal Way during winter break, said she’s excited the lights were added.
“It’s something that we’ve hoped would happen for a long time,” she said.
“It was just hours and hours of work without seeing any results. Five years later, to actually see it happening is really amazing.”
The lights on the reflective signs are solar-powered and can be remotely activated by public safety officials.
Orting Mayor Cheryl Temple is not sure what or how much of an impact the lights will have. In 2008, the students presented their light proposal to the Orting City Council.
“The best thing is that these girls have gotten involved in local government,” Temple said.
Sharp said the county will wait a couple months before testing the lights with the 17 outdoor lahar sirens in the Puyallup River Valley to make certain the lights are working properly with the rest of the warning system.
Orting received the lighted signs first because the city of 6,770 would be the first populated area hit by a lahar from the Puyallup or Carbon rivers, caused by an eruption of Mount Rainier.
Two of the signs are along state Route 162 in the north and south ends of Orting.
Another is along Calistoga Street heading west of the city. All three are along designated evacuation routes.
More signs with lights could be added elsewhere in the Puyallup River Valley.
If there’s positive feedback from the community about the lights, Sharp said, “we’ll probably look at installing them in some of the more-urban areas.”
The project also helped forge lasting friendships among the four girls who graduated from Tacoma Baptist High School.
Wintersole goes to Calvary Chapel Bible College in the Los Angeles area. Yazdi is a freshman at Northwest University in Kirkland, and Zeitler is a freshman at Whitworth University in Spokane.
“We’re all really close,” Wolf said. “We talk all the time.”
Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647
steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street
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