Emergency officials in Auburn told a city podcast that a lahar — a volcano-related mudflow originating at Mount Rainier — could reach Auburn in roughly 90 minutes in some modeled scenarios and that Auburn’s outdoor sirens are intended specifically for lahar warnings.

"According to some of the work that we've done in the past with the state…we have roughly 90 minutes," Emergency Manager Matthew Kolpitz said. Kolpitz and Emergency Management Coordinator Tyler Turner said additional lead time might be possible if geologic monitoring detects precursory seismic activity, but warned residents to be ready to act quickly.

Turner described the sirens’ purpose: "Auburn has sirens, that, are for lahar. They're not for flooding. They're not for anything else in Auburn. Other areas of the country use sirens for different reasons, but the ones in the Auburn area are lahar sirens."

Officials advised uphill evacuation on foot where possible because roads can congest rapidly. "Don't take your car. Walk if you can because the roads will be congested, and you probably won't make it in a car," Kolpitz said. He recommended moving to higher ground (for example, Lee Hill or West Hill) and following official notifications for route and shelter information.

Officials also discussed other low-probability, high-impact hazards the city watches, including hazardous-materials incidents on rail or at industrial sites, wildland-urban interface fires, dam failure scenarios and Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes. Turner said the Howard Hansen Dam was estimated in the podcast discussion to give Auburn roughly six hours of lead time to downtown in a worst-case dam-failure model: "we'd have about 6 hours," he said.

Ending: The emergency office urged residents to sign up for county alerts, learn evacuation routes, keep a grab-and-go kit and pay attention to lahar sirens as part of the city's hazard outreach. No new evacuation orders were issued during the interview.