I've been reading the Mt. St. Helens 40th anniversary daily on Facebook, and I don't see a lot of institutional admission of error yet. USGS expected a relatively small avalanche, not the huge lateral explosion it became. The majority of people who died were in areas open to the public that USGS thought would remain safe. But the early, and continuing popular story is that people died because they refused to evacuate. No, most casualties were not in places they were told to evacuate from. Will you be publicizing the error in prediction that caused the casualties?
Cara_longleaf3 karma
I've been reading the Mt. St. Helens 40th anniversary daily on Facebook, and I don't see a lot of institutional admission of error yet. USGS expected a relatively small avalanche, not the huge lateral explosion it became. The majority of people who died were in areas open to the public that USGS thought would remain safe. But the early, and continuing popular story is that people died because they refused to evacuate. No, most casualties were not in places they were told to evacuate from. Will you be publicizing the error in prediction that caused the casualties?
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