  The Science of Surviving an Avalanche For more than a century, Popular Mechanics has provided lifesaving advice for outlasting storms, surviving outdoors, and preparing for disaster. Find out how to survive anything right here.
Avalanches are deadly. It doesn't take much for one to snowball out of control, and more often than not, rescuers have mere minutes to find a buried person before the odds of survival plummet.
"To be successful, an avalanche rescue has to occur very quickly. If rescuers can locate and uncover the buried person within 10 minutes, the person has an 80% chance of surviving. By 15 minutes, the survival rate drops to 40%, and after 35 minutes it's less than 10%," says Anne St. Clair, a public avalanche forecaster for Avalanche Canada and an instructor trainer with the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE).
According to the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), a large avalanche is capable of releasing 300,000 cubic yards of snow. That's the equivalent of 20 football fields filled with snow 10 feet high. Hypothermia, suffocation, and succumbing to wounds are usually what kill people.
"The slope doesn't have to be big and gnarly like the ones you see in the movies," says Nick Meyers, director of the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center. "It doesn't matter what type of activity brings you to the mountains. If you have a slope with snow on it, you need to know about avalanches."
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Minggu, 14 Maret 2021
The Science of Surviving an Avalanche
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