Say Anything Blog

The flurry of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens intensified further Thursday, and scientists warn that a small or moderate blast could spew ash and rock as far as three miles from the crater in the next few days.
The volcano began rumbling last week, and by Wednesday earthquakes ranging from magnitude 2 to 2.8 were coming about four times a minute, possibly weakening the lava dome in the crater of the 8,364-foot mountain, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

A bigger concern, he and others in the town of perhaps 200 said, was the recent closure of the mountain and some trails leading to it. It's bad for business.

"The United States Geologic Survey budget depends on something happening up there," offered Ken Guthrie, a restaurant patron who provided helicopter fly-overs of the crater for several years until retiring.