KING 5’s Rich Marriott was working for the Northwest Avalanche Center when Mount St. Helens erupted. He was part of the team that surveyed damage via helicopter.
SKAMANIA COUNTY, Wash. — When the first earthquakes occurred on Mount St. Helens on March 16, 1980, I was working as a meteorologist for the U.S. Forest Service at the Northwest Avalanche Center.
Those earthquakes also triggered widespread large avalanches on the mountain in the late winter snowpack. Fortunately, no one was hurt by the slides even though the area was popular with cross-country skiers.
As the volcano became more active and generated hundreds of additional earthquakes
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