"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
The prediction now is for a much bigger eruption than originally expected.
I
would strongly discourage sightseeing trips in the area.

One of the things that really bothers me is the crowds of people that have
come to see the mountain. They are sitting in the middle of literally
miles
of downed trees: trees that have all fallen in a direction away from the
mountain. Hardly a blade of grass grows there almost 25 years after the
blast. Yet they think they are far enough away to be safe. They don't seem
to get a clue from the total devastation that surrounds them.

I know scientists don't expect another eruption like 1980. Well, they
didn't
expect it in 1980, either.

They didn't expect it? Is that why they did a full-scale evacuation?

I'm a little confused...can you be more specific? I can easily believe that
the 1980 eruption was even larger than expected, but as far as I know, they
DID expect a very large eruption, one much larger than what they are
currently expecting.

What size eruption are you claiming they expected in 1980? Either in
absolute terms, or relative to the current predictions would be fine for
clarification.

There's much less "mountain" blocking the flow of magma, and so any eruption
is necessarily going to be much smaller than what occurred in 1980. There's
plenty of areas that were devastated in 1980 that won't be touched this time
around.

They've evacuated folks from the visitor's center that's only 5 miles from
the dome, but left the one that's almost 8 miles from the dome open. That
gives an indication of how large an eruption is expected, and it's clear the
expected eruption is MUCH smaller than even what was expected in 1980, even
if that eruption turned out to be larger than expected (and I'm not aware of
any significant difference between the 1980 prediction and what ultimately
happened...maybe for my education you could provide documentation describing
that difference?).

All that said, I certainly agree with the overall gist of your message,
summarized in your first sentence: sightseeing trips in the area are almost
certainly unwise, until whatever eruption is expected does actually happen
and all the rocks have stopped falling.

Pete