Tagged: Mount St Helens

Just in time for another anniversary of the catastrophic Mount St. Helens eruption, the U.S. Forest Service is reopening an architecturally striking visitor center. The Coldwater Ridge facility has been closed for the last four seasons. the center reopens next week with a new mission and purpose.

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. –The Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mount St. Helens is reopening for the season this weekend. That's just in time for the 30th anniversary of the volcano's epic blast. The visitor center re-opens with new short films and exhibits.

The Johnston Ridge Observatory is the closest visitor center to the crater of Mount St. Helens. This spring, highway crews plowed away snow to allow contractors to get in early to freshen up the displays. Monument scientist Peter Frenzen wanted the exhibit material to reflect technological advances in volcano monitoring.

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. –Where were you on May 18, 1980? The massive eruption of Mount St. Helens that day is one of those seminal events on par with 9/11 or the JFK assassination. Hard to believe it's been thirty years. The blast zone is once again teeming with life. Even scientists are amazed. Correspondent Tom Banse has more on the wider lessons ecologists draw on this anniversary.

“I can hear the mountain behind me rumbling. An enormous mud and water slide washed out the road...”

That's KOMO-TV cameramen David Crockett scrambling to escape unimaginable devastation.