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" After the infamous eruption in 1980, Richard Waitt, a surficial geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, was went to survey the devastated area and soon found himself as the audience to unsolicited survivor stories. A few weeks into his new position, Waitt realized that no matter how much field work he undertook, he&amp;#039;d never be able to put together the true story of Mary 18, 1980, without those first-hand accounts. What was so unique about the Mount St. Helen&amp;#039;s eruption? This was a very extraordinary eruption. First, it included the biggest landslide in historic times. Second, the lava surge that drowned the forest and killed everything in its path was much larger than anticipated. Other than that, the eruption was fairly normal: It melted snow, made floods and sent a big ash cloud up and across multiple states.  Were people prepared for the eruption? There were many people in the valley who were disbelievers; they thought the forest service and geologists were exaggerating everything. There were some spectacular symptoms, like earthquakes, and the first of those did make news. But after hundreds of quakes and no action, they became old hat. Another symptom -- the small, stupendous, highly visible eruptions -- also became routine when they ceased to worsen. They even stopped for a period of time -- it looked like the thing was going back to sleep.  What can scientists do to better educate the public? As we tried to prepare people at Mount St. Helens, we&amp;#039;d use nerdy terminology, like &amp;quot;pyroclastic flow,&amp;quot; and people&amp;#039;s eyes would glaze over as soon as it left our mouths. Our own language defeats trying to communicate the dangers to a non-scientist. Also, we don&amp;#039;t know exactly what&amp;#039;s going to happen, so we can&amp;#039;t go out and say. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s going to explode like a bomb, kiss your ass goodbye.&amp;quot; So we tend to give the range of what can happen -- everything from small to big. It&amp;#039;s very hard without a long-term education program to prepare anybody who doesn&amp;#039;t want to be educated about the potential outcome of an eruption.  Is it even possible to predict the severity of an eruption like this? Not really. With a Hawaiian-type of rush, you pretty much know what&amp;#039;s going to happen. You don&amp;#039;t know where the lava is going to go, but you know it&amp;#039;s going to flow. Explosive volcanoes such as Mount St. Helen&amp;#039;s are extremely variable as to how they behave: They erupt infrequently, and when they do it can be mild, medium or violent. There&amp;#039;s no way to predict it. It&amp;#039;s like trying to predict the next San Francisco earthquake. You know there&amp;#039;s going to be one, but you can&amp;#039;t tell when. Is there any danger of Mount St. Helens erupting anytime soon? What causes a volcano -- small or large -- to explode are gasses getting pent up inside. The old vent seals off, yet the magma is still stewing underneath. Gradually, components of this fluid become volatile. These gases build up, and when there&amp;#039;s finally enough pressure, they try to find their way to the surface. The current eruption is basically like a tube of toothpaste squeezing out of the ground. Because the gas is coming out with the magma, there&amp;#039;s no reason for it to build up and we don&amp;#039;t think it can explode. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a1979/4219897/>